MRS.   DARRELL 


'"I  DON'T  THINK  MRS.  DARKELL  CAN  SEE  YOU  AOAIN.' 


MRS.  DARRELL 


BY 

FOXCROFT  DAVIS 

AUTHOR  OF  "DESPOTISM  AND  DKMOCBACT' 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS  BY 
WILLIAM  SHERMAN  POTTS 


Wefo  gorft 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:    MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 

1905 
All  rights  reserved 


COPYBIGHT,   1905, 

BY  THE  MAOMILLAN  COMPANY. 

Set  up  and  electrotyped.    Published  May,  1905.    Reprinted 
June,  1905. 


Norfoooto  tfrcss 

J.  8.  Cuihlng  &  Co.  -  Berwick  Ic  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Man.,  U.S.A. 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

"  « I  don't  think  Mrs.  Darrell  can  see  you  again '  "   Frontispiece 

FACING   PAGK 

"  '  Oh,  papa  1 '  she  said,  « save  my  little  pearl  heart '"       .        6 

"...  She  caught  him  by  the  arm  and  whispered,  '  And 

could  you  leave  me  ? '" 64 

"  Baskerville  took  Anne  out  to  dinner  "     .        .        .        .138 
"The  little  park  was  wholly  deserted  except  for  them- 


The  next  minute  she  was  fast  in  Baskerville's  arms  "     .    280 


2135373 


MKS.  DAKEELL 

Chapter  One 

TIME  was,  not  so  long  ago,  when  Washington 
had  some  primitive  aspects.  This  was  when  the 
city  was  merely  a  political  capital  and  society  was 
made  up  of  the  high  government  officials,  the  dip- 
lomatic corps,  the  army  and  navy,  and  senators 
were  very  great  personages  and  even  the  now 
despised  members  of  the  House  of  Representatives 
had  a  place  on  the  social  chess-board.  This  was 
before  the  influx  of  recently  acquired  wealth  and 
the  building  of  splendid  mansions  wherein  to 
house  the  retired  trade.  There  were  few  private 
ball-rooms,  and  certain  subscription  dances  were 
reckoned  to  be  very  smart.  To  these  dances 
young  ladies  were  not  ashamed  to  wear  muslin 
gowns,  nor  to  go  in  the  tram,  carrying  with  them 
a  contrivance  known  as  a  "  party -bag,"  which  held 
their  white  slippers,  fans,  and  gloves. 

The  young  ladies  were  just  as  beautiful  then 
as  now,  as  certainly  Captain  Reginald  Darrell  and 
[1] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Captain  Hugh  Pelham,  officers  of  the  178th  Foot 
Regiment,  then  stationed  in  India,  thought  one 
night  as  they  watched  from  the  street  those  charm- 
ing Washington  girls  thronging  to  the  big  Charity 
Ball  of  the  season.  It  was  a  cold,  clear  January 
night,  and  the  two  young  officers,  cousins  and 
chums,  who  had  wandered  idly  from  their  hotel, 
watched  with  profound  interest  this  phase  of  an 
American  ball. 

The  event  being  a  great  Charity  Ball,  tickets 
were  on  sale  at  all  the  hotels.  Pelham  and 
Darrell  had  invested  in  a  couple  of  tickets,  and 
were  now  standing  outside  the  building,  doubt- 
ing whether  after  all  they  should  go  in  or  not. 
They  had  heard  and  read  much  of  American 
splendor,  and  this  had  come  nearly  deterring  them 
from  coming  to  America  at  all,  considering  their 
small  allowance  and  modest  pay  in  a  foot  regi- 
ment. Both  of  them,  it  was  true,  were  the  grand- 
sons of  a  peer,  but  a  peer  almost  as  poor  as 
Lazarus.  Each  had  the  enormous  advantage  of 
good  birth,  good  breeding,  and  the  urgent  neces- 
sity of  making  his  own  way  in  the  world.  There 
was,  it  is  true,  some  shadowy  expectation  of  a  for- 
tune which  Darrell  might  inherit  as  heir-at-law, 
and  Pelham  was  next  heir  after  Darrell.  But  the 
chance  was  so  remote  that  the  only  present  benefit 
[2] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

they  had  out  of  it  was  mess-table  joking,  and  a 
declaration  on  Darrell's  part  that  his  love-affairs 
were  always  cruelly  interfered  with  by  Pelham. 
In  fact,  Pelham's  interference  —  that  is  to  say,  in- 
fluence —  with  Darrell  in  every  way  was  complete, 
Darrell  being  simple,  brave,  polite,  handsome,  and 
commonplace,  while  Pelham  was  short,  dark,  rather 
homely,  of  uncommon  powers  of  mind  and  char- 
acter. Pelham  was  much  favored  by  women, 
whom  he  treated  with  remarkable  gentleness 
and  courtesy,  but  for  whom  he  had  felt  a  secret 
indifference. 

Darrell,  on  the  contrary,  was  devoted  to  the 
whole  sex,  their  petted  and  curled  darling.  He 
thought  a  woman  the  object  of  the  highest  conse- 
quence, —  that  is  to  say,  next  to  sport,  which  he  re- 
garded as  something  sacred,  ranking  with  Church 
and  State.  He  always  had  a  dozen  love-affairs  on 
hand,  and  like  the  man  in  the  old  song,  "  He  loved 
the  ladies,  every  one."  In  Darrell's  eyes,  Pelham's 
only  fault  was  that  he  considered  these  love-affairs 
legitimate  subjects  of  chaffing  and  laughing,  while 
Darrell  took  them  all  with  perfect  seriousness. 

It  was  Pelham  who,  in  his  desire  to  see  the 

world,  so  far  as  his  narrow  purse  would  permit, 

had  induced  Darrell  to  plunge,  so  to  speak,  to  the 

extent  of 'going  to  India  by  way  of  the  United 

[3] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

States  and  spending  three  weeks  in  Washington, 
relying  upon  economy  for  the  next  five  years 
when  they  would  be  with  their  regiment  in  India 
in  the  Punjaub. 

They  were  somewhat  surprised,  however,  to 
find  that  in  the  capital  of  the  richest  country  in 
the  world  there  was  no  great  amount  of  splendor 
in  those  days,  but  rather  a  modest  standard  of 
living  for  a  capital.  In  particular  it  appeared  to 
them  this  evening  that  the  splendor  of  the  ball  was 
conspicuous  by  its  absence.  It  must  be  premised, 
however,  that  they  had  not  then  seen  the  supper, 
which  was  truly  regal.  Exteriorly,  they  could 
not  but  compare  the  scene  with  the  real  magnifi- 
cence of  such  an  occasion  in  London  during  the 
season,  with  the  superb  coaches  magnificently 
horsed,  the  gorgeous-liveried  footmen,  the  army  of 
servants  lining  the  stairways  and  the  approaches, 
and  the  universal  elegance  which  pervades  these 
balls  of  the  summer  nights  given  under  the  sky  of 
London.  At  the  Washington  ball,  however,  they 
saw  only  a  moderate  number  of  private  carriages, 
ordinary  in  every  way,  a  vast  number  of  shabby 
old  cabs,  —  known  then  as  "hacks,"  —  gentlemen 
arriving  on  foot,  and  even  young  ladies,  their 
ball-dresses  discreetly  covered  with  large  cloaks, 
tripping  along  the  streets,  with  their  escorts  of 


MRS.  DARRELL 

father  or  brother  carrying  a  party-hag.  This, 
remember,  was  before  the  Deluge,  that  is  to  say 
at  least  fifteen  years  ago. 

The  building  in  which  the  ball  was  held  was 
large  and  plain,  both  inside  and  out,  but  blazing 
with  lights.  The  street  itself  had  long  since  been 
deserted  by  fashion.  The  negroes,  never  absent 
from  a  spectacle  in  Washington,  with  their  white 
teeth  shining  in  the  'wintry  moonlight  lined  the 
sidewalk.  A  few  white  persons  loitered  under 
the  gas-lamp,  watching  the  long  line  of  carriages 
discharging  their  inmates  at  the  big,  wide-open 
door,  from  whence  the  strains  of  the  Marine  Band 
floated  out  into  the  cold,  still  night. 

The  two  young  Englishmen  entered  the  street 
and  stood  watching  the  scene  with  interest,  lean- 
ing against  the  tall  iron  railings  of  the  old- 
fashioned  quarter.  Pelham  and  Darrell  noticed 
near  them,  also  leaning  against  the  iron  railings, 
a  man  of  about  middle  age,  with  a  sort  of  leonine 
beauty  and  handsomely  dressed,  though  far  too 
showily.  His  fur-lined  greatcoat  brought  out  the 
clean-cut  outlines  of  his  clean-shaven  face,  his  iron- 
gray  hair,  and  straight,  narrow  brows  over  eyes  of 
singular  eloquence.  Both  young  officers  observed 
him,  for  it  was  difficult  at  any  time  to  look  once 
at  James  Clavering  without  looking  at  him  twice. 
[5] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

In  the  circle  of  light  made  by  two  flashing  gas- 
lamps  in  the  front  entrance,  suddenly  appeared  a 
young  girl  leaning  on  the  arm  of  an  elderly 
gentleman.  At  the  same  instant  the  eyes  of 
Pelham  and  Darrell  and  Clavering  fell  upon  her, 
and  each  thought  her  the  most  beautiful  woman 
that  he  had  ever  seen  —  which  was,  however,  a  very 
great  mistake.  Elizabeth  Brandon  had,  it  is  true, 
hair  of  satin  blackness  and  skin  of  milky  white- 
ness, and  eyes  that  reminded  one  of  a  summer 
night,  so  soft,  so  dark  with  occasional  flashes  of 
starlike  brilliancy,  and  a  figure  as  slight  and 
graceful  as  a  lily-stalk.  Other  women  have  as 
much  beauty  of  feature  as  Elizabeth  Brandon,  but 
she  had  that  which  is  beauty  itself,  the  power  to 
charm  at  a  glance.  She  was  not  really  as  hand- 
some as  her  father,  General  Brandon,  on  whose 
arm  she  leaned,  and  who  carried  her  party -bag. 

Both  Pelham  and  Darrell  saw  at  a  glance  that 
General  Brandon  was  a  military  man.  And 
Clavering  recognized  him  as  the  Captain  Brandon 
he  had  known  twenty-five  years  before  at  a  post  in 
Texas,  where  Clavering  was  at  the  time  a  sutler. 
He  had  heard  that,  at  the  breaking  out  of  the 
Civil  War,  Captain  Brandon,  who  was  a  Southern 
man,  had  resigned  and  had  become  a  brigadier- 
general  in  the  Confederate  Army.  Since  the  war, 
[6] 


'On,  PAPA!'    SHE  SAID,  'SAVE  MY  LITTLE  PEARL  HEART.'" 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Brandon  had  disappeared  in  the  great,  black  gulf 
that  opened  where  once  stood  a  government 
which  called  itself  the  Confederate  States  of 
America.  But  Clavering  gave  no  thought  to  this, 
as  under  the  cover  of  darkness  he  surveyed  the 
charming  girl  who  clung  to  General  Brandon's 
arm.  The  two  stood  directly  in  front  of  Pelham 
and  Darrell,  who  bestowed  upon  Elizabeth  those 
glances  of  respectful  admiration  which  is  the 
homage  due  to  beauty. 

"  My  dear,"  said  General  Brandon,  in  a  pecul- 
iarly musical  voice,  to  his  daughter,  "  I  think  we 
had  better  wait  here  until  Mrs.  Luttrell's  carriage 
arrives.  It  is  in  line  down  the  street,  but  will  not 
be  here  for  five  minutes  or  more." 

Darrell  and  Pelham  moved  a  little  aside  so  that 
the  young  lady  and  her  father  might  be  somewhat 
out  of  the  way  of  the  passing  throng.  General 
Brandon  recognized  this  civility  by  lifting  his  hat 
punctiliously  to  each,  which  courtesy  both  of  them 
returned.  At  the  same  moment,  Elizabeth  lifting 
her  hand  to  her  white  throat,  her  sleeve  caught  in 
a  slender  gold  chain  around  her  neck  and  a  sudden 
movement  broke  it, 

"  Oh,  papa  !  "  she  said,  "  save  my  little  pearl 
heart.  I  would  not  lose  it  for  the  world." 

General  Brandon  immediately  looked  down  on 
[7] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

the  wet  sidewalk  for  the  trinket,  a  search  in 
which  he  was  joined  by  both  Pelhara  and  Darrell. 
Clavering,  who  was  in  the  shadow,  did  not  move, 
but  his  eyes  followed  every  movement  of  the 
group.  Elizabeth  unconsciously  brushed  against 
him.  There  was  some  mud  on  his  boots,  and  it 
became  transferred  to  her  white  muslin  skirts, 
which  she  let  fall  in  the  anxiety  of  her  loss.  The 
trinket,  it  would  seem,  had  fallen  at  their  very 
feet,  but  it  was  not  to  be  found.  Elizabeth's 
eyes  filled  with  tears,  and  she  mourned  for 
her  little  pearl  heart  as  if  it  had  been  a  lost 
child. 

"  It  is  of  no  real  value,"  she  said  to  Pelham, 
raising  her  soft,  dark  eyes  to  his,  "but  I  would 
not  have  lost  it  for  anything." 

Both  Pelham  and  Darrell  were  keen-eyed  and 
searched  diligently  for  the  lost  trinket,  but  un- 
availingly.  Pelham,  usually  the  most  unim- 
pressed of  men  where  women  and  their  fallals 
were  concerned,  felt  that  he  would  have  given 
a  month's  pay  to  have  found  the  little  ornament 
and  thereby  dry  the  tears  that  glistened  on  Eliza- 
beth's long,  black  lashes  ;  but  it  was  soon  obvious 
that  there  was  no  finding  her  lost  treasure.  Its 
disappearance,  though  mysterious,  was  instant 
and  complete. 

[8] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

General  Brandon  said  in  his  slow,  suave  voice  : 
"  My  dear  child,  all  our  efforts  are  vain.  I  think 
your  little  treasure  must  have  been  stolen  by  an 
unseen  hand  at  the  instant  you  dropped  it ;  but 
you,  gentlemen,"  he  said,  turning  to  Pelham  and 
Darrell,  "have  been  most  kind,  and  I  beg  to 
introduce  myself  to  you.  I  am  General  Brandon 
of  Virginia,  formerly  of  the  United  States  Army 
and  lately  of  the  Confederate  Army.  Here  is 
my  card,  and  I  shall  be  most  pleased  to  see  you 
at  my  house." 

Pelham  and  Darrell  were  nearly  knocked  down 
by  this  unexpected  invitation.  They  did  not 
know  that  a  Virginian  never  loses  the  habit  of 
asking  Thomas,  Richard,  and  Henry  to  call  upon 
him,  on  the  slightest  provocation  and  often  with- 
out any  provocation  at  all.  But  they  recognized 
in  a  moment  that  this  handsome  and  courtly  per- 
son who  went  around  recklessly  inviting  street 
acquaintances  to  visit  his  house,  was  a  gentleman 
of  purest  rays  serene,  and  being  of  the  same  caste 
themselves,  and  thereby  made  free,  both  of  them 
promptly  accepted.  Pelham,  who  was  quick  of 
wit  where  Darrell  was  slow,  introduced  himself 
and  his  friend,  each  handing  his  card. 

"  Ah  !  "  cried  General  Brandon,  "  so  you  are 
officers  of  the  British  Army.  I  am  more  than 
[9] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

pleased  to  meet  you.  I  am,  like  most  persons  in 
my  native  state,  of  unmixed  English  descent,  my 
family  being  a  younger  branch  of  the  Suffolk- 
Brandons  ;  and  I  also  am  of  the  profession  of 
arms.  I  was  in  the  old  army,  where  I  held  the 
rank  of  major,  and  afterward,  when  I  followed 
my  state  out  of  the  Union,  I  had  the  honor  of 
being  brigadier-general  in  the  army  of  the  South- 
ern Confederacy.  Permit  me  to  introduce  you 
to  my  daughter."  And  this  General  Brandon 
proceeded  to  do.  Elizabeth  bowed  and  smiled 
and  was  not  at  all  taken  aback  by  the  suddenness 
of  the  acquaintance.  Virginians  think  that  all 
well-bred  persons  constitute  a  sort  of  national 
and  international  oligarchy,  whereof  every  mem- 
ber is  or  ought  to  be  known  to  every  other 
member. 

Pelham  and  Darrell  were  perfectly  delighted, 
Darrell  at  the  chance  of  meeting  so  beautiful  a 
girl  as  Elizabeth,  and  Pelham  charmed  with  the 
courtesy  and  innocent  simplicity  of  General  Bran- 
don, who,  while  a  man  of  the  world  in  its  best 
sense,  was  yet  unworldly. 

"And  may  I  ask,"  said  the  General,  "if  you 
are  attending  the  ball  to-night?" 

"  Yes,"  said  Pelham,  "  we  understood  it  was  a 
Charity  Ball,  and  bought  tickets  at  the  hotel ; 
[10] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

but  as  we  are  entire  strangers,  we  were  doubtful 
whether  after  all  it  would  be  judicious  for  us  to 
show  our  faces  in  the  ball-room." 

"My  dear  sir,"  replied  General  Brandon,  ear- 
nestly, "  do  not  give  yourself  the  least  uneasiness, 
I  beg  of  you.  I  myself  am  not  going,  and  a 
friend  Mrs.  Luttrell  will  chaperon  my  daughter  ; 
but  Mrs.  Luttrell  will  likewise  chaperon  you,  arid 
I  shall  have  pleasure  in  introducing  you  to  any 
one  whom  you  may  desire  to  meet.  My  daughter 
also  will  do  the  same." 

"With  pleasure,"  said  Elizabeth,  quickly  and 
sweetly. 

"If  you  will  do  me  the  honor  to  dance  with 
me,"  said  Darrell  to  Elizabeth,  thinking  to  cut 
Pelham  out. 

"  I  can't  compete  with  Captain  Darrell  on  that 
ground,"  said  Pelham,  quickly,  with  a  certain 
grimness  in  his  smile,  "  but  if  Miss  Brandon  will 
only  condescend  to  notice  me  in  the  ball-room, 
I  shall  feel  that  I  am  well  established." 

Elizabeth  looked  at  Pelham  closely.  He  was 
not  at  all  handsome,  but  he  was  far  from  insignifi- 
cant, and  he  had  one  of  those  beautifully  modu- 
lated English  voices  and  a  look  and  a  smile  which 
were  extremely  winning  to  women,  children,  and 
lost  dogs.  Darrell  on  the  contrary  was  as  hand- 
[11] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

some  as  a  dream,  with  the  unmistakable  blond, 
clean,  Anglo-Saxon  beauty. 

By  this  time,  among  the  slow  procession  of 
carriages,  ever  moving,  a  big,  old-fashioned  lan- 
deau,  with  a  pair  of  long-tailed  horses  to  it  and 
a  colored  coachman  and  footman,  halted  directly 
in  front  of  them.  A  lady  with  very  dark  eyes 
and  very  white  hair  and  a  voice  sweet,  but  with 
a  singular  carrying  quality  which  could  make 
itself  heard  over  all  the  clatter  of  the  street, 
called  out :  — 

"  My  dear  General  Brandon,  I  am  mortified  to 
death  almost.  I  meant  to  bring  Elizabeth  to  the 
ball  with  me,  but  I  declare  I  forgot  all  about  it 
until  it  was  too  late,  and  my  nephew  has  been 
scolding  me  about  it  ever  since  I  left  home. 
Richard,  go  and  fetch  Elizabeth  now." 

The  carriage  door  opened,  and  Richard  Basker- 
ville  got  out.  He  was  a  little  better  looking  than 
Pelham,  though  not  half  so  good  looking  as 
Darrell ;  but  he  belonged  in  the  category  of  Pel- 
ham, —  that  class  of  men  who  can  attract  notice 
and  admiration  without  the  aid  of  good  looks. 
He  advanced  and,  bowing  to  General  Brandon, 
offered  his  arm  to  Elizabeth,  saying  with  the  air 
of  old  acquaintanceship,  "  My  aunt  has  really  be- 
haved shockingly  to  you,  and  I  am  ashamed  of  her." 
[12] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

"  Stop,  Richard,"  said  General  Brandon,  detain- 
ing him.  "I  wish  to  present  to  you  two  friends 
of  mine."  General  Brandon  had  never  laid  eyes 
on  Darrell  or  Pelham  in  his  life  until  five  minutes 
before  ;  but  Richard  Baskerville,  who  understood 
General  Brandon  thoroughly,  would  not  have  been 
the  least  surprised  if  he  had  introduced  a  boot- 
black who  had  obliged  him  and  was  therefore  a 
valued  friend.  "  May  I  introduce  you  to  Captain 
Pelham  of  the  178th  Foot,  and  Captain  Darrell  of 
the  same  regiment,  —  British  officers  ?  I  need 
say  no  more." 

Baskerville  politely  shook  hands  with  both 
Pelham  and  Darrell,  who  discerned  in  him  one  of 
the  most  agreeable  traits  of  American  character, 
cordiality  to  strangers  —  a  cordiality  which  pre- 
vails in  all  American  society  among  the  retired 
tradespeople,  the  newly  rich. 

"  And,"  continued  General  Brandon,  "  they  are 
both  going  to  the  ball.  I  intrust  them  to  Mrs. 
Luttrell  to  make  acquaintances  among  the  young 
ladies,  and  to  you  for  the  same  duties  among  the 
gentlemen." 

Then    Mrs.    Luttrell's    penetrating   voice   was 

heard  calling  to  General  Brandon,  "  Come  here 

this  minute,  General  Brandon."      And  when  he 

was  about  halfway  across  the  muddy  street  to  her 

[13] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

carriage,  she  inquired,  in  a  tone  perfectly  audible 
to  both  Pelham  and  Darrell,  "  Who  are  those  two 
nice-looking  men  standing  with  Elizabeth  ?  " 

"  English  officers,"  replied  General  Brandon.  "I 
hope  you  find  yourself  very  well  this  evening." 

"Bring  them  here  this  instant.  I  shall  take 
them  to  the  ball  with  me  ! "  was  Mrs.  Luttrell's 
reply  to  this  information  —  Mrs.  Luttrell  being  a 
pirate  and  freebooter  of  the  worst  description 
whenever  desirable  men  were  discerned. 

"Just  what  I  was  about  to  ask  you,  but  as 
usual  you  anticipate  everything." 

Pelham,  Darrell,  and  Baskerville,  who  were  look- 
ing gravely  at  each  other,  exchanged  glances,  which 
were  equivalent  to  winks,  and  Baskerville  said:  — 

"  You  might  as  well  give  in  to  my  aunt.  She 
is  a  very  determined  woman,  but  she  will  do  a 
good  part  by  you  with  the  young  ladies.  I  need 
not  say  I  shall  be  most  happy  to  introduce  you  to 
any  one  of  my  acquaintances  you  may  wish  to 
know.  Come,  Miss  Brandon."  He  gave  Eliza- 
beth his  arm  and  escorted  her,  with  Pelham  and 
Darrell  following,  across  the  street  to  where  Mrs. 
Luttrell's  big  coach,  with  the  lamps  flowing  out  in 
the  darkness,  had  its  place  in  the  line  of  carriages. 

Elizabeth  had  felt  from  the  beginning  the 
strange  influence  of  the  unknown  man  in  the 
[14] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

shadow,  whose  eyes  had  been  fixed  upon  her  from 
the  moment  of  their  arrival.  She  had  glanced 
back  half  a  dozen  times  at  his  tall  and  imposing 
figure  and  had  been  acutely  conscious  of  his  keen 
observation.  She  felt  it  still  as  she  walked  away 
from  him. 

Elizabeth  felt  as  if  in  a  dream.  She  was  dis- 
tressed and  even  superstitious  about  the  loss  of 
her  little  ornament.  It  not  only  distressed  her, 
but  had  given  her  a  presentiment  of  evil,  and  she 
was  vaguely  conscious  of  some  malign  influence 
near  her  and  likewise  of  the  admiration  and  in- 
cipient tenderness  which  Darrell  and  Pelham  felt 
towards  her,  of  her  father's  deep  and  protecting 
love,  of  being  the  object  of  solicitude  to  Mrs. 
Luttrell  and  Baskerville.  She  was  at  that  mo- 
ment surrounded  by  admiration  and  love  and  care, 
but  she  was  haunted  by  a  sudden  sense  of  evil 
close  to  her.  She  stepped  silently  into  the  car- 
riage, and  took  her  seat  by  Mrs.  Luttrell's  side. 
General  Brandon  then  presented  the  two  young 
British  officers  as  if  they  were  his  long-lost 
brothers.  Mrs.  Luttrell  received  them,  not  as  if 
they  were  her  long-lost  brothers,  but  like  a  perfect 
woman  of  the  world,  born  to  command,  and  who, 
seeing  what  she  wanted,  took  her  own,  wherever 
she  found  it,  as  Molie're  says.  And  now  she  said 
[15] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

to  them  :  "  Please  get  into  the  carriage.  It  holds 
four  very  comfortably.  I  do  not  care  for  these 
miniature  broughams  and  coupes,  meant  to  hold  a 
woman  and  a  poodle.  I  like  a  good  big  carriage, 
the  sort  our  great-grandfathers  had  when  every- 
body had  fourteen  children  and  generally  took 
seven  with  them  when  they  went  visiting.  My 
carriage  holds  four,  and  I  could  pack  six  away  in 
it  if  I  chose.  I  can  take  you  in,  General  Bran- 
don," she  said. 

"  A  thousand  thanks,  my  dear  Mrs.  Luttrell," 
replied  General  Brandon,  who  did  not  have  at 
that  moment  the  price  of  a  ticket  either  at  home 
or  in  his  pocket.  "  I  have  no  intention  of  going 
to  the  ball  since  you  are  so  kind  as  to  chaperon 
my  child.  Good  night." 

"Good  night." 

Baskerville  then  shut  the  door.  "  You  needn't 
ask  me  to  get  in.  I  shall  walk  down.  It  is  only 
a  step  anyhow,  but  I  know  your  propensities  for 
packing  your  carriage  as  full  as  an  omnibus,  and  I 
don't  believe  in  encouraging  you  in  your  vices." 

"  The  way  my  nephew  talks  to  me  is  perfectly 
shocking,"  said  Mrs.  Luttrell,  resignedly,  to  her 
new-found  guests  ;  "  but  he  is  the  best  and  dear- 
est fellow  in  the  world." 

Pelham  and  Darrell  were  more  and  more  de- 
[16] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

lighted  at  every  turn  in  their  adventure.  Dar- 
rell  recognized  by  instinct  and  Pelham  by  his 
naturally  thorough  reasoning  powers  that  here 
they  had  come  across  an  American  lady  —  no 
sham  Englishwoman,  with  the  sham  English  man- 
ner, sham  affectation  of  speech,  and  with  all  the 
defects  of  an  exact  imitation.  And  each  of  them 
felt  a  strange  joy  at  being  so  close  to  Elizabeth 
Brandon.  She  sat  back  in  the  carriage,  and  they 
could  see  her  white  breast  rising  and  falling  as 
she  threw  back  her  large  gray  cloak ;  and  the  soft 
beauty  of  her  eyes  was  visible  in  the  half  dark- 
ness of  the  carriage.  Elizabeth,  who,  like  most 
Southern  women,  was  naturally  talkative,  kept 
singularly  quiet.  Her  gaze  was  turned  towards 
the  spot  where  they  had  just  been  standing,  and 
she  was  conscious  rather  than  actually  saw  the 
dark  brown  eyes  of  the  man  who  had  stood  just 
behind  her  and  whose  presence  near  her  she  had 
felt  without  seeing  him.  But  she  recovered  her- 
self and  began  to  talk  with  a  graceful  ease  and 
familiarity  at  once  charming  and  flattering  to  the 
two  young  Englishmen.  Mrs.  Luttrell,  however, 
held  the  centre  of  the  stage,  according  to  her 
invariable  custom,  and  gave  Pelham  and  Darrell 
a  pretty  fair  idea  of  what  they  would  meet  at  the 
Charity  Ball. 

[17] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

In  a  few  minutes  more  the  carriage  reached  the 
door  of  the  hall,  where  Baskerville  was  awaiting 
them,  and  he  escorted  them  up  the  stairs.  He 
utilized  the  time  when  Mrs.  Luttrell  and  Eliza- 
beth were  in  the  dressing-room,  to  introduce  the 
two  young  officers  to  several  of  the  men  best 
worth  knowing  in  Washington. 

As  for  the  ladies,  Elizabeth,  on  removing  her 
cloak,  was  dismayed  to  find  that  her  fresh  white 
muslin  gown  had  more  than  one  spot  of  mud  on 
it,  and  it  took  ten  minutes  of  diligent  rubbing, 
washing,  and  pressing  to  get  it  out.  She  realized 
that  she  must  have  got  it  from  the  boots  of  the 
man  who  stood  behind  her,  whose  dark  and 
striking  face  had  fixed  her  attention  at  first  and 
in  whose  neighborhood  she  had  felt  strangely 
influenced.  And  then  the  loss  of  her  little 
pearl  heart —  But  the  Marine  Band  was  play- 
ing loudly  a  rhythmic  waltz,  there  were  partners 
at  the  door  waiting  for  her.  She  had  two  desir- 
able men,  both  strangers,  whom  she  might  con- 
sider her  property  for  that  evening.  She  was 
young  and  beautiful,  and  in  a  little  while  all 
of  her  unpleasant  sensations  passed  away.  She 
found  herself  whirling  around  the  room  in  Dar- 
rell's  arms.  For  a  wonder,  although  an  English- 
man, he  knew  how  to  dance,  and  Elizabeth  was 
[18] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

intensely  susceptible  to  rhythm  and  music.  She 
felt  when  she  began  to  waltz  with  Darrell,  as  if 
she  would  like  to  waltz  forever  with  him.  He 
was  so  strong,  so  supple,  so  graceful,  —  so  sus- 
ceptible, like  herself,  to  that  charm  of  dance 
music  in  which  two  people  dancing  together  are 
conscious  of  that  sensuous  counterpart  of  real 
love  which  makes  a  man  and  a  woman  feel  as  if 
they  constituted  one  being  with  a  single  heart  and 
a  single  soul. 

Darrell  realized  the  first  moment  that  he  held 
Elizabeth  in  his  arms  and  floated  with  her  to  the 
languorous  waltz  music,  that  he  had  never  really 
been  in  love  at  all  before  ;  but,  as  he  frankly  con- 
fessed to  himself,  it  was  all  up  with  him  now. 
He  knew  not  who  or  what  she  was,  but  it  could 
make  but  little  difference  to  him.  He  loved  her 
and  he  knew  it.  He  would  have  liked  not  to 
leave  her  side  once  during  the  evening,  and  in 
fact  he  was  near  her  most  of  the  time  and  danced 
with  her  six  times. 

Pelham,  on  the  contrary,  only  sat  out  a  single 
dance  with  her,  as  he  was  not  a  dancing  man. 
He  too  felt  a  charm  about  her  which  he  had 
never  known  in  any  other  woman.  Sitting  out 
dances  with  young  ladies  had  been  a  species  of 
torment  to  him,  but  not  so  this  time.  He  thought 
[19] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

the  charm  that  Elizabeth  exercised  over  him  was 
that  she  was  the  first  of  all  unmarried  English- 
speaking  women  that  he  had  known  who  was 
perfectly  and  entirely  at  her  ease  with  an  un- 
married man.  She  assumed  an  attitude  openly 
and  yet  most  delicately  flattering  towards  him. 
He  had  known  Englishwomen  of  fascination  who 
were  entirely  at  ease  with  men,  but  never  flat- 
tering ;  and  he  had  known  other  women  who 
were  very  flattering  to  men,  but  never  at  ease 
with  them.  Here  was  a  woman  who  treated  him 
with  the  frankness  she  would  have  shown  tow- 
ards a  younger  brother,  with  the  confidence  she 
would  have  shown  a  respected  elder  brother, 
and  with  the  deference  she  would  have  shown 
the  greatest  Duke  in  England.  Pelham  rightly 
judged  that  here  he  had  met  the  true  American 
type.  A  woman  with  an  ancestry  of  gentle  peo- 
ple, dating  back  two  or  three  hundred  years,  and 
developed  in  a  country  where  respect  for  women 
is  so  insisted  upon  as  to  be  professed  by  those 
who  neither  believe  in  it  nor  practise  it,  —  as 
such  Elizabeth  was  to  him  the  most  interesting 
woman  he  had  ever  met.  He  was  himself  a 
reading  man,  and  Elizabeth  Brandon  at  twenty 
had  read  only  a  few  books,  but  these  were  the 
English  classics  and  they  had  given  her  the  ca- 
[20] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

pacity  to  talk  to  a  reading  man  like  Pelham. 
He  foresaw  that  at  thirty  Elizabeth  would  have 
read  a  great  many  books,  and  with  the  untram- 
melled association  with  men  of  all  ages  and  in 
the  free  American  atmosphere,  her  mind,  natu- 
rally good,  would  have  developed  admirably. 

As  Pelham  and  Elizabeth  sat  at  the  foot  of 
the  stairs,  a  cabinet  officer  passed  them  slowly, 
as  they  sat  under  a  bower  of  great  palms,  with 
the  throbbing  music  far  enough  away  not  to 
interrupt  their  talk;  and  Elizabeth  spoke  to  the 
cabinet  officer.  He  was  an  elderly  man  from 
the  West,  manly  and  even  gentlemanly,  though 
not  polished.  Pelham  noticed  with  what  ease 
Elizabeth  spoke  to  this  type  of  man,  the  smil- 
ing, tactful  answers  she  gave  to  his  pleasant  but 
rather  blunt  questions.  She  introduced  Pelham 
promptly  to  him,  accompanying  the  introduction 
with  a  request  that  he  would  be  very  nice  to 
Captain  Pelham  while  he  was  in  Washington; 
and  when  the  cabinet  officer  asked  her  what  she 
wanted  him  to  do  for  Captain  Pelham,  she  replied 
promptly  :  — 

"  Send  him  a  card  to  the  club." 

Pelham  was  aghast  at  the  boldness  of  this,  and 
tried  to  imagine  the  daughter  of  a  half -pay  officer 
in  England  asking  a  cabinet  minister  to  send  a 
[21] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

card  to  White's  and  Brooke's  to  a  chance  acquaint- 
ance she  had  just  picked  up. 

Elizabeth  continued  placidly :  "  Of  course  I 
could  get  a  card  through  papa.  He  does  not 
belong  to  the  club,  —  it  is  too  expensive,  —  but  he 
knows  a  great  many  men  in  the  club.  You  know 
he  can't  afford  anything  except  me  ;  and  there 
are  plenty  of  other  men  who  would  send  Captain 
Pelham  a  card  if  I  asked  them,  but  you  happen 
to  be  the  biggest  man  I  know  and  that  is  why  I 
am  asking  you." 

At  which  the  cabinet  officer,  laughing,  said, 
"Will  you  be  kind  enough,  Captain  Pelham,  to 
give  me  the  name  of  your  hotel  ?  —  and  I  will 
have  a  card  sent  to  you  to-morrow  morning." 

"  And  he  has  a  cousin,  Captain  Darrell,"  added 
Elizabeth,  promptly,  "and  he  must  have  a  card, 
too." 

"  Certainly,"  replied  the  cabinet  officer,  taking 
out  his  note-book  and  writing  down  the  two 
names.  "His  brothers,  cousins,  and  his  uncles 
and  all  his  relations,  if  you  like,"  and  after  taking 
the  names  down  the  cabinet  officer  walked  away, 
laughing.  This  was  an  experience  that  Pelham 
thought  his  comrades  would  doubt  when  he  told 
it  at  the  mess-table  of  the  178th  Foot. 

Pelham  spent  much  more  time  with  Mrs.  Lut- 
[22] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

trell  than  with  Elizabeth,  and  the  two  were 
mutually  charmed.  Mrs.  Luttrell's  daring  and 
positive  language  and  her  air  of  command  were 
accompanied  with  a  fascination  of  smile  and  voice 
which  was  effective  even  with  her  snow-white 
hair  and  crow's  feet  around  her  eyes,  still  full  of 
light  and  life.  Pelham  noticed  that  she  was 
always  surrounded  by  men,  young  and  old.  She 
treated  the  young  men  like  patriarchs  and  the 
patriarchs  like  boys. 

Baskerville,  quiet,  rather  sedate,  and  seeking 
the  middle-aged  rather  than  the  young,  struck 
Pelham  as  one  of  the  pleasantest  fellows  he  had 
ever  met.  It  looked  as  if  this  chance  incursion 
of  the  Charity  Ball  would  reveal  more  of  the  real 
American  life  to  Pelham  and  Darrell  than  they 
might  have  met  in  a  month  of  ordinary  traveller's 
advantages.  Mrs.  Luttrell  had  already  engaged 
them  for  a  couple  of  dinners  and  Baskerville  for 
a  club  breakfast.  Most  of  the  people  they  met 
were  agreeable,  and  they  noticed  that  buoyancy 
of  spirit  and  gayety  of  heart  which  a  great  writer 
on  America,  and  another  writer  who  was  the  most 
patronizing  literary  snob  ever  seen  in  North 
America,  mutually  agreed  to  be  characteristic 
of  American  society.  The  ball  itself,  which  was 
described  by  the  society  correspondents  as  of  sur- 
[23] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

passing  brilliancy,  hardly  reached  that  mark  ;  but 
to  three  persons,  Elizabeth  Brandon,  Pelham,  and 
Darrell,  it  was  an  evening  of  delight,  never  to  be 
forgotten. 

Meanwhile,  James  Clavering  still  stood  outside 
in  the  sharp,  starlit  night,  listening  to  the  bursts 
of  music  which  came  at  intervals  from  the  ball- 
room and  watching  the  great  lighted  windows. 
He  saw  Elizabeth  Brandon  float  past  in  Darrell's 
arms,  and  watched  them  enviously.  His  exterior 
showed  that  the  price  of  a  ball-ticket  was  nothing 
to  him,  but  he  knew  that  he  had  no  place  then 
in  a  ball-room.  He  had  taken  no  part  in 
searching  for  the  trinket  which  Elizabeth  had 
dropped,  but  presently,  moving  a  little,  he  saw 
under  his  heel  the  crushed  fragments  of  pearls. 
He  had  unconsciously  ground  the  little  heart 
under  his  foot.  It  gave  him  a  spasm  of  regret 
and  even  of  sentiment,  and  he  thought  to  himself, 
with  an  odd  smile  flitting  across  his  well-cut 
features,  "  Suppose  some  day  I  should  give  that 
girl  a  diamond  heart,  five  times  as  big  and  a 
thousand  times  as  costly  as  this.  It  wouldn't  be 
so  strange,  after  all." 

He  had  stood  watching  the  last  stragglers  to 
the  ball  and  searching  the  windows  for  a  passing 
glimpse  of  the  beautiful  Elizabeth.  Meanwhile, 
[24] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

outside,  General  Brandon  had  returned  to  the 
sidewalk.  He  would  have  dearly  liked  to  go, 
himself  ;  but  it  had  been  all  that  he  could  do  to 
buy  a  ticket  for  Elizabeth,  —  a  ticket  and  seven- 
teen yards  of  white  muslin,  which  she  herself  had 
fashioned  with  her  own  fingers  into  a  beautiful 
gown  and  had  trimmed  with  her  grandmother's 
old  lace. 

As  General  Brandon  was  moving  off,  a  hand 
touched  his  elbow,  and  James  Clavering,  who  had 
been  standing  a  little  in  the  background,  spoke 
to  him. 

"  This  is  General  Brandon  ?  "  he  said. 

"  Yes,"  replied  General  Brandon,  looking  into 
the  clear-cut  face  of  the  man  before  him,  who 
towered  a  head  above  him.  "  And  you,  I  cannot 
at  this  moment  call  your  name." 

"  It's  Clavering.  Don't  you  remember  me 
when  I  was  a  sutler  at  Fort  Worth  in  Texas,  and 
you  were  a  captain  of  cavalry  at  the  same  post  ?  " 

A  light  dawned  upon  General  Brandon.  He 
grasped  the  ex-sutler's  hand  as  cordially  as  if  he 
had  been  an  officer  of  the  British  Army.  "  Cer- 
tainly I  do.  You  knew  me  before  the  war." 
All  Virginians  divide  time  into  three  epochs, 
before  the  war,  during  the  war,  and  after  the 
war.  "And  a  very  excellent  sutler  you  were. 
[25] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

I  recall  that  you  had  a  good,  industrious  wife  and 
several  promising  children.  You  look  prosperous. 
The  world  seems  to  have  gone  well  with  you." 

"  Pretty  well,"  replied  Clavering,  ignoring  the 
mention  of  his  wife  and  children.  He  had  a 
voice  of  music  which  added  to  his  other  personal 
advantages.  "  I  hope  the  same  is  the  case  with 
you?" 

The  General  smiled  placidly.  "  I  resigned 
from  the  army  when  my  state  seceded,  and  went 
through  four  years  on  the  battlefields  of  Virginia, 
and  I  attained  the  rank  of  brigadier-general. 
Then  I  entered  the  service  of  the  Khedive  of 
Egypt  and  served  in  Egypt  for  eight  years,  but 
you  know  what  has  fallen  out  there.  So  I  have 
returned  to  Washington,  and  through  the  influ- 
ence of  old  army  friends  I  have  secured  a  clerk- 
ship in  the  War  Department." 

"  Pretty  hard  lines,  isn't  it  ?  "  asked  Clavering, 
looking  at  General  Brandon's  seedy  great-coat, 
and  knowing  what  stupendous  changes  were 
involved  in  the  story  told  so  smilingly  by  the 
time-worn  veteran. 

"Scarcely  that,"  answered   General   Brandon, 

with  the  same  gentleness  of  tone  and  smile.     "  I 

have  a  small  house  here  in  rather  a  good  part 

of  the  town,  and  my  salary  is  sufficient  for  my 

[26] 


MRS.    DARRELL 

simple  wants  and  those  of  my  daughter,  who  has 
no  extravagant  tastes.  Thanks  to  my  old  army 
friends  I  -am  here,  and  they  have  met  me  witli 
extraordinary  kindness  and  good-will  and  shown 
me  much  hospitality.  On  the  whole  I  think  my- 
self decidedly  well  off,  all  things  considered." 

Clavering  looked  at  General  Brandon  with  pity 
and  good-natured  contempt.  He  seemed  to  Clav- 
ering about  as  guileless  and  innocent  as  a  board- 
ing-school miss  or  a  college  sophomore  ;  and  yet 
he  had  commanded  three  thousand  fighting  men, 
during  four  fierce  years  of  a  bloody  war,  and  had 
been  relied  upon  by  no  less  a  man  than  Stonewall 
Jackson  himself.  All  this  Clavering  knew,  as  he 
knew  most  of  the  contemporary  history  of  his 
own  country. 

"  And  that  charming  young  lady,"  he  asked 
after  a  moment,  "was  your  daughter?" 

"  Yes,  my  only  child  and  as  good  as  she  is 
beautiful.  May  I  ask  if  Mrs.  Clavering  is  alive  ? 
I  remember  her  as  a  most  worthy  woman." 

"  Yes,"  answered  Clavering,  shortly.  "  Now 
will  you  come  with  me  to  one  of  the  up-town 
hotels  and  have  a  smoke  and  a  drink?  In  the 
old  days  when  I  was  a  sutler  and  you  were  a  cap- 
tain, I  should  have  known  better  than  to  ask  you; 
but  I  never  expected  to  remain  a  sutler  always. 
[27] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

I  have  made  money  hi  the  West,  and  I  have  am- 
bitions of  various  sorts.  Some  day  you  will  hear 
of  me." 

"  Nothing,"  said  General  Brandon,  impressively, 
"  should  he  or  is,  in  this  country,  out  of  reach  of 
any  man  with  brains  and  solid  worth."  The 
General  himself  was  an  aristocrat  from  the  crown 
of  his  head  to  the  sole  of  his  feet,  but  he  never 
dreamed  of  it. 

"  And  some  education,"  added  Clavering.  He 
knew  his  man  thoroughly.  "  Brains  are  the  first 
requisite,  and  solid  worth  is  all  very  well.  But  a 
man  must  have  some  other  qualifications.  A  man 
must  know  something  beyond  the  common  school 
of  his  youth  and  the  bigger  common  school  of  his 
manhood,  in  order  to  make  a  lasting  impression 
on  his  time.  Of  course  I  don't  include  geniuses 
in  this  category,  but  men  of  talent  only.  I  have 
not  what  I  call  education,  but  I  have  the  next 
best  thing  to  it.  I  know  my  own  limitations.  I 
have  a  boy  on  whom  I  shall  put  a  twenty -thou- 
sand-dollar education,  but  I  am  very  much  afraid 
that  he  is  a  twenty-doilar  boy." 

General   Brandon  did  not   exactly  understand 

this,  and  Clavering  said  no  more  about  his  boy. 

They  walked  off  together,  and  in  a  little  while 

they  were  seated  in  the  lobby  of  an  up-town  hotel 

[28] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

and  Clavering  was  telling  the  story  of  his  life  — 
or  what  he  chose  to  tell  of  it  —  to  General  Bran- 
don. It  was  not  an  instinctive  outpouring  of  the 
truth,  but  as  a  matter  of  fact  Clavering  was  re- 
hearsing for  the  role  he  intended  to  play  in  a  few 
years'  time,  —  that  of  the  rich  man  who  has  hewn 
his  way  through  a  great  forest  of  difficulties  and 
has  triumphed  in  the  end.  He  was  astute  enough 
not  to  despise  men  of  General  Brandon's  stamp, 
simple,  quiet,  brave,  having  little  knowledge  of 
affairs  but  perfectly  versed  in  ethics.  Clavering 
in  short  knew  the  full  value  of  a  gentleman, 
although  he  was  not  one  himself. 

They  sat  late,  and  when  the  General  reached  his 
own  door  in  a  tall  old  house  far  up  town,  Eliza- 
beth was  just  descending  from  Mrs.  Luttrell's 
carriage,  escorted  by  Richard  Baskerville. 

"  Oh,  papa,"  she  said,  running  up  the  steps,  her 
white  muslin  skirts  floating  behind  her,  "  I  have 
had  the  most  glorious  evening."  She  was  quite 
unaware  that  the  hour  of  fate  had  struck  for  her, 
and  that  she  had  entered  the  portals  of  destiny  — 
a  new  and  strange  destiny. 


[29] 


Chapter  Two 

PELHAM  and  Darrell  had  reckoned  upon  spend- 
ing three  weeks  in  Washington,  but  it  became  a 
full  month.  They  were  practically  adopted  by 
Mrs.  Luttrell,  and  found  her  large,  handsome, 
old-fashioned  house  a  centre  of  the  best  society, 
where  they  saw  all  that  was  worth  seeing  in 
Washington.  At  their  own  Embassy  they  soon 
became  favorites,  and  it  was  after  a  ball  there 
that  a  revelation  came  to  Pelham.  He  had  seen 
Elizabeth  Brandon  every  day  of  their  stay  in 
Washington,  and  every  day  she  had  absorbed  a 
little  more  of  his  strong,  reserved,  and  silently 
controlled  nature  and  had  gained  an  inch  or  two 
in  his  reserved,  tender,  but  devoted  heart.  He 
discovered  that  Elizabeth  had  both  goodness  and 
intelligence  as  well  as  charm  and  beauty.  She 
was  very  young  to  him,  —  that  is,  in  his  own 
thirty  years  he  had  seen  and  known,  realized  and 
suffered,  ten  times  more  than  Elizabeth  during 
her  twenty  years  of  life.  He  recognized  in  her  a 
naturally  fine  mind  and  taste  for  reading,  a  de- 
lightful and  subtle  power  of  accommodating  herself 
[30] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

to  the  mode  and  manner  of  any  man  she  wished 
to  please.  How  attractive  this  would  make  her  to 
the  man  she  loved  and  married  !  The  thought 
almost  dazzled  Pelham's  strong  and  sober  brain. 
He  saw  that  she  was  a  little  intoxicated  with  the 
new  wine  of  life,  her  beauty,  her  grace  and  popu- 
larity ;  she  was  quite  unburdened  with  the  cares 
and  anxieties  of  richer  girls  who  wore  finer  gowns 
and  sighed  for  the  partners  who  crowded  around 
Elizabeth. 

Pelham  was  not  in  the  least  disturbed  by  the 
fact  that  Darrell  had  fallen  violently  in  love  with 
Elizabeth  and  proclaimed  it  to  him  a  dozen  times 
a  day.  It  was  Darrell's  normal  condition  to  be 
violently  in  love  with  some  pretty  girl ;  but 
frankly  admitting  that  his  pay  and  allowance 
were  not  enough  for  one,  much  less  for  two,  there 
was  small  danger  of  his  actually  committing  him- 
self, so  Pelham  thought.  Nor  did  he  observe  any 
difference  in  Elizabeth's  acceptance  of  Darrell's 
attentions  from  those  of  any  other  man  whom  she 
liked  —  her  manner  was  uniformly  flattering  and 
complaisant ;  in  truth,  he  had  very  little  concep- 
tion of  Elizabeth's  feminine  power  of  conceal- 
ment. 

On  the  night  of  the  ball  at  the  British  Em- 
bassy, Pelham,  on  his  return  to  his  hotel,  sat  in 
[31] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

his  own  room,  smoking  and  turning  over  an  im- 
portant question  in  his  mind,  which  was  "when 
should  he  ask  Elizabeth  Brandon  to  marry  him." 
He  had  not  much  to  offer  her  in  a  worldly  point 
of  view.  His  own  position  was  good,  but  no 
better  than  hers,  and  he  discovered  that  General 
Brandon,  who  had  been  to  England  once  or  twice, 
had  hobnobbed  with  persons  of  higher  rank  even 
than  the  peer  of  the  realm  who  was  grandfather 
to  both  Darrell  and  himself  ;  but  Pelham  real- 
ized with  an  admiration  as  deep  as  his  love 
that  Elizabeth  was  not  the  woman  to  marry  for 
either  money  or  position.  He  was  reflecting  on 
what  he  should  say  to  General  Brandon  next  day, 
before  speaking  to  Elizabeth,  for  he  had  old-fash- 
ioned notions  as  to  the  rights  of  fathers.  He  was 
wondering,  in  case  Elizabeth  accepted  him,  how 
General  Brandon  would  take  the  proposition  that 
she  should  come  out  to  India  and  marry  him 
there  after  the  English  fashion,  and  was  in 
doubt  whether  General  Brandon  would  fall  on 
his  neck  and  embrace  him  or  kick  him  down- 
stairs. 

While  he  was  considering  these  things,  the  door 

opened  and  Darrell  walked  in.     He  threw  himself 

in  a  chair  close  to  Pelham  and,  closing  his  eyes, 

went  into  a  revery.     Pelham  looked  at  him  good- 

[32] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

humoredly.  No  doubt  he  was  dreaming  about 
Elizabeth.  He  was  a  handsome  fellow,  no  deny- 
ing that,  and  candor,  courage,  and  honesty  were 
writ  large  all  over  him.  Presently  he  roused 
himself,  and  leaning  over  towards  Pelham,  and 
blushing  like  a  girl,  for  the  first  time  in  his  life, 
he  said  in  a  whisper,  "  She  loves  me." 

Pelham  received  a  shock  such  as  he  had  never 
known  before.  He  knew  Darrell's  sincerity  and 
real  modesty  too  well  to  doubt  him,  and  his  mind 
took  in  immediately  and  quietly  the  calamity  to 
himself  which  Darrell's  words  implied.  He  sat 
still,  so  still  that  Darrell  shook  him.  "  Do  you 
hear,  old  man?  It  was  all  settled  to-night  at 
the  ball,  not  two  hours  ago,  behind  a  big  hydran- 
gea in  a  flower-pot,  and  you've  got  to  help  me  out. 
I  am  to  see  the  Ambassador  to-morrow  and  ask 
him  to  cable  for  two  weeks'  additional  leave,  so  we 
can  be  married  before  sailing." 

Yes,  with  Pelham  the  dream  was  over,  the  fairy 
palace  had  crumbled.  The  heavenly  music  had 
dissolved  in  air.  The  world  had  suddenly  grown 
bleak  and  cold  and  commonplace,  but  pride  and 
common  sense  still  remained. 

"  It  seems  to  me,"  said  Pelham,  in  a  quiet  voice, 
after  a  pause,  "  that  there  isn't  much  left  for  me 
to  do.  You  and  —  Miss  Brandon  have  agreed,  and 
D  [33] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

the  Ambassador  can  no  doubt  get  you  two  weeks 
more  leave  — "  Pelham  stopped  with  a  choking 
in  his  throat  which  he  had  never  felt  before  in  all 
his  life. 

"  But  why  don't  you  congratulate  me  ?  "  cried 
Darrell.  They  had  been  like  brothers  all  their 
lives,  and  Pelham  was  to  Darrell  his  other  self ; 
while  Darrell  was  to  Pelham  a  younger  brother 
whose  excellence  of  heart  and  delicacy  of  soul 
made  up  for  a  very  meagre  understanding. 

"  I  do  congratulate  you,"  said  Pelham,  grasping 
Darrell's  hand,  the  old  habit  of  love  and  brotherly 
kindness  overwhelming  him.  "  I  think  Miss  Bran- 
don the  most  charming  girl  I  ever  knew.  Any 
man  is  fortunate  to  get  her.  But  I  don't  think 
you  are  half  good  enough  for  her,  Jack." 

"  That  is  just  what  I  think,"  answered  Darrell, 
with  perfect  sincerity.  "  But  no  man  is  good 
enough  for  her  as  far  as  that  goes,  and  I  am  not 
the  man  to  be  running  away  from  an  angel ;  but 
there  are  lots  of  things  to  be  attended  to.  I  must 
give  my  whole  time  to  Elizabeth,  and  I  cannot  ask 
the  Ambassador  to  see  about  transportation,  tick- 
ets, and  transferring  luggage.  You  must  do  that, 
and  pay  for  it  all  ;  and  I  will  pay  you  back  when 
we  get  our  respected  aunt's  fortune  —  fifty  years 
or  more  from  to-day." 

[34] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  Of  course  I  shall  do  all  that  is  necessary," 
replied  Pelham,  "  and  there  will  be  plenty  to  do. 
Getting  married  is  heavy  business,  and  taking  a 
girl  away  to  India  at  a  fortnight's  notice  —  How 
did  you  have  the  courage  to  ask  so  much  of  such 
a  woman  ?  " 

"  I  don't  know.  It  happened,  that's  all,  and  I 
was  in  heaven.  I  shall  be  there  again  to-morrow 
morning  at  eleven  o'clock,  when  I  shall  see  Eliza- 
beth." He  spoke  her  name  as  if  it  were  a  saint's 
name. 

The  two  men  sat  talking  for  an  hour  or  two. 
DarrelPs  manner  in  speaking  of  his  acceptance  by 
Elizabeth  was  not  gushing,  but  expressed  a  deep 
and  sincere  passion,  which  he  told  Pelham,  with 
perfect  simplicity,  was  the  first  and  only  love  of 
his  life  ;  and  Pelham  believed  him.  After  part- 
ing from  Darrell,  Pelham  sat  up  until  dawn,  wres- 
tling with  his  own  heart ;  but  when  the  day  broke 
he  had  conquered  his  anguish.  He  saw  that 
Elizabeth  had  possibly  entered  upon  a  thorny 
path  by  marrying  Darrell.  He  saw  all  the  pit- 
falls which  awaited  a  young  and  beautiful  woman, 
the  wife  of  a  subaltern  in  a  foot  regiment  in  India. 
He  foresaw  that  Elizabeth's  charming  freedom  of 
manner,  her  flattering  attitude  towards  men  of  all 
sorts  and  conditions,  which  might  answer  well 
[35] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

enough  in  America,  would  probably  be  misunder- 
stood by  others  more  or  less  strict  than  herself, 
and  he  determined  to  be  her  friend,  and  felt  sure 
that  she  would  soon  need  one.  Darrell  was  the 
best  fellow  alive,  but  he  was  not  the  man  to  man- 
age that  complicated  problem,  a  pretty,  vivacious, 
innocent,  intelligent,  admiration-loving  American 
girl,  without  family  or  friends,  cast  loose  at  an 
Indian  station. 

In  the  afternoon  of  that  day,  Pelham  paid  his 
first  call  on  Elizabeth  as  the  prospective  bride 
of  Darrell.  He  thought  her  more  love-compelling 
in  her  new  relation  of  a  promised  bride  than  he 
had  ever  seen  her  before ;  her  shyness,  her  pallor, 
her  tears,  her  deep  feeling,  her  constant  remem- 
brance of  what  her  father  would  suffer,  endeared 
her  to  Pelham,  and  yet  her  willingness,  like  the 
Sabine  women  of  old,  to  go  with  the  man  she 
loved  was  deeply  touching.  It  was  a  deliciously 
old-fashioned  love  match,  both  Elizabeth  and 
Darrell  looking  forward  to  an  uninterrupted 
honeymoon  for  the  rest  of  their  lives  —  Eliza- 
beth quite  as  much  so  as  Darrell.  Pelham  at 
this  interview  was  kindness  and  sympathy  itself, 
and  even  in  the  midst  of  her  dream  of  love 
Elizabeth  felt  the  serious  value  of  such  a  friend- 
ship as  this  quiet,  silent,  rather  ugly  young  officer, 
[36] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

sparing  of  words,  but  full  of  tact,  was  offering 
her. 

When  Pelham  came  out  of  the  shabby  old 
house  which  was  Elizabeth's  home,  he  met  Gen- 
eral Brandon  face  to  face  on  the  steps.  Pelham 
grasped  his  hand  cordially.  He  felt  acutely  for 
the  poor  father  who  had  to  give  up  such  a 
daughter,  to  go  upon  such  a  lifelong  journey. 
Something  prompted  Pelham  to  say,  "  I  con- 
gratulate my  friend  and  cousin  Darrell  with  all 
my  heart,  but  for  you  who  are  to  give  up  your 
daughter,  I  can  only  say  that  I  feel  for  you  more 
than  I  can  express." 

"  You  should  congratulate  me,  too,"  replied 
General  Brandon,  gently.  "  It  was  written  that 
I  should  have  to  give  up  my  child,  and  since  it 
had  to  be,  I  am  glad  to  give  her  to  a  man  as 
admirable  in  every  way  as  Captain  Darrell." 
General  Brandon  would  have  said  this  about 
any  son-in-law  not  an  absolute  blackguard.  But 
accidentally  he  happened  to  be  right,  for  Dar- 
rell was  indeed  admirable  in  many  ways.  "  She 
will  go  far  from  me,"  said  the  General,  with  a 
sudden  break  in  his  voice,  "but  that  a  father 
must  be  prepared  for.  May  she  be  happy,  — 
that  is  all  I  ask.  Captain  Darrell  came  to  see 
me  this  morning  and  mentioned  settlements.  At 
[37] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

the  words  I  was  somewhat  offended,  not  being 
used  to  having  such  matters  mentioned  in  con- 
nection with  marriage ;  but  I  speedily  found  that 
his  intentions  were  most  generous,  he  merely 
wanted  to  give  my  daughter  everything  he  had. 
On  my  part  I  endowed  my  daughter  with  all 
I  had,  seven  bonds  of  the  Egyptian  government, 
for  which  I  paid  a  thousand  pounds  in  English 
money,  the  best  part  of  what  I  received  during 
my  service  with  the  Khedive  Ismail.  I  believe 
they  would  now  bring  very  little  in  the  market, 
but  no  doubt  in  the  course  of  time  the  Egyptian 
government  will  meet  all  of  its  obligations  in  full. 
We  must  not  lose  our  faith,  my  dear  Pelham,  in 
human  nature.  I  also  wished  to  make  over  to 
my  daughter  the  equity  in  my  house,  for  I  have 
never  been  able  to  pay  off  the  mortgage  which  I 
acquired  when  I  bought  it ;  but  this  Captain  Dar- 
rell  most  generously  refused  to  accept.  And 
when  he  told  me  that  his  pay  and  allowances 
would  amount  to  something  like  five  hundred 
pounds  a  year,  I  felt  that  it  should  be  quite 
enough  to  support  a  young  couple  in  India,  at 
least  for  the  present." 

Pelham  had  to  look  away  and  laugh,  at  the  bare 
idea  of  two  such  innocents  as  General  Brandon 
and  Jack  Darrell  attempting  to  transact  business, 
[38] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

and  the  gravity  with  which  General  Brandon 
mentioned  the  Egyptian  bonds  would  have  pro- 
voked a  laugh  from  a  dead  horse.  But  there 
was  so  little  money  concerned  in  the  transaction 
that  it  really  did  not  make  much  difference. 

In  the  course  of  twenty-four  hours,  through 
the  good  offices  of  the  British  Ambassador  at  the 
Washington  office  with  the  War  Office  in  Lon- 
don, a  cablegram  arrived,  granting  an  extension 
of  leave  for  fourteen  days  to  both  Pelham  and 
Darrell.  Their  prolonged  stay  in  Washington 
had  already  made  it  necessary  for  them  to  return 
to  India  by  way  of  Suez,  and  to  give  up  their 
transcontinental  trip.  The  additional  two  weeks 
gave  time  for  the  wedding  preparations,  which 
were  necessarily  simple  for  a  wedding  tour  of 
two  days  and  the  sailing  from  New  York  in  time 
to  catch  the  next  steamer  of  the  Messageries  Mari- 
times  at  Marseilles. 

Pelham  saw  Elizabeth  nearly  every  day  during 
the  two  weeks  preceding  the  marriage,  and  every 
time  he  saw  her  the  melancholy  conviction  came 
over  him  that  she  was  the  woman  he  was  never  to 
forget  and  never  to  cease  to  love. 

Mrs.  Luttrell  took  charge  of  affairs,  as  much 
as  Pelham  would  let  her.  She  gave  the  newly 
engaged  pair  a  large  and  splendid  dinner  in 
[39] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

honor  of  their  engagement,  and  there  were  other 
festivities  of  the  same  nature  given  by  other 
persons  on  a  smaller  scale.  All  of  Elizabeth's 
former  admirers,  and  they  were  legion,  sent  her 
wedding  presents,  and  the  shabby  house  was 
nearly  swamped  with  them. 

Richard  Baskerville  was  of  great  assistance  to 
Pelham  in  putting  things  through,  for  it  was 
Pelham  who  made  the  marriage  possible.  Dar- 
rell  could  do  nothing  but  gaze  into  Elizabeth's 
beautiful  black  eyes,  and  if  Pelham  would  have 
let  him,  would  have  spent  all  the  money  necessary 
for  their  first-class  passage  to  India  in  buying 
bouquets  for  Elizabeth.  Between  Richard  Bas- 
kerville, already  known  as  one  of  the  cleverest 
young  lawyers  in  Washington,  and  Pelham  a  sin- 
cere friendship  sprang  up,  as  the  two  men  were 
alike  in  many  respects. 

On  a  bright,  sunny  day  in  February,  Elizabeth 
Brandon  became  the  wife  of  Jack  Darrell.  The 
wedding  took  place  at  a  little  suburban  church 
where  the  seats  were  cheap  enough  for  General 
Brandon,  who  was  a  strong  churchman,  to  afford 
seats  for  two.  There  were  neither  bridesmaids  nor 
groomsmen,  nor  any  of  the  showy  paraphernalia 
of  a  smart  wedding.  Elizabeth,  as  much  in  love 
as  she  was,  yet  felt  too  much  the  coming  parting 
[40] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

from  her  father  to  make  her  wedding  a  merry 
one ;  it  was,  rather,  sad,  as  are  many  of  the 
sweetest  things  in  life.  Pelham  was  best  man, 
and  the  Ambassador,  who  had  good-naturedly 
helped  the  matter  along,  was  present.-  Also 
there  were  half  a  dozen  fossils,  old  comrades 
and  Virginia  relations  of  the  Brandons.  Richard 
Baskerville  and  Mrs.  Luttrell  were  there,  and 
the  society  newspapers  described  Mrs.  Luttrell 
as  wearing  a  superb  black-velvet  gown  and  a 
magnificent  ermine  cape.  Mrs.  Luttrell's  black- 
velvet  gown  and  ermine  cape  were  a  uniform 
which  she  had  worn  for  the  last  forty  years,  re- 
placing each  velvet  gown  and  ermine  cape,  as 
fast  as  they  wore  out,  with  new  ones. 

Her  carriage  took  the  bride  and  her  father  to 
the  church,  the  bridegroom  and  his  best  man 
having  preceded  them  in  a  cab.  Elizabeth,  in 
her  simple  white  wedding  gown,  with  magnificent 
old  lace  and  her  grandmother's  pearls,  made  an 
exquisite  bride,  and  Darrell  looked  every  inch  a 
soldier  in  his  scarlet  tunic.  It  was  a  wedding 
where  love  and  honor  presided,  yet  Pelham's 
heart  was  heavy  at  what  might  be  the  outcome. 

There  was  a  simple  wedding  breakfast  at  Eliza- 
beth's home,  where  were  assembled  a  few  persons, 
some  of  them,  like  the  Ambassador  and  a  couple 
[41] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

of  cabinet  officers,  sufficiently  important  to  have 
delighted  the  newly  rich  to  have  secured  as 
guests,  and  others,  like  the  old  comrades  and 
the  decayed  Virginia  relatives,  so  unimportant 
that  the  newly  rich  would  not  have  touched 
them  with  a  ten-foot  pole.  The  bride's  health 
was  drunk  in  cheap  champagne.  When  she 
departed  in  her  travelling  gown  for  her  two  days' 
wedding  trip  before  sailing  on  that  other  tremen- 
dous journey  to  India,  tears  were  in  the  eyes  of 
most  present,  but  General  Brandon  was  dry-eyed 
and  smiling.  When  he  had  bidden  the  last  guest 
farewell  and  turned  into  his  lonely  home,  which 
had  that  strange  look  of  emptiness  that  follows 
a  wedding  or  a  funeral,  Pelham  returned  with 
him. 

General  Brandon,  seeing  the  sympathy  in  the 
eyes  of  Pelham,  who  had  his  own  heartache,  laid 
both  hands  on  his  shoulders  and  said,  "  My  dear 
sir,  believe  me,  I  am  at  this  moment  a  perfectly 
happy  and  delighted  man,"  and  then  suddenly 
wept  like  a  child. 

Pelham  spent  the  next  two  days  comforting 
and  uplifting  General  Brandon,  and  felt  himself 
comforted  and  uplifted  by  association  with  such 
a  man.  He  said  earnestly,  at  parting  with  the 
General:  "Believe  me,  your  daughter  has  the 
[42] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

best  of  friends  as  well  as  husbands  in  Darrell, 
but  she  shall  never  want  a  friend  as  long  as  I 
live.  India  is  a  treacherous  place  to  men  who 
are  out  in  the  hot  sun,  and  life  is  held  there  by 
a  very  uncertain  tenure.  So  your  daughter  may 
survive  us  both  ;  but  as  long  as  either  one  of  us 
is  alive,  she  shall  be  as  well  protected  as  if  she 
were  in  your  house." 

Two  days  after  the  wedding  Pelham  saw 
Elizabeth  on  the  deck  of  the  steamer  which  was 
to  carry  them  to  Havre.  Her  first  words  were, 
"  How  is  my  father  ?  "  and  despite  the  deep  glow 
of  happiness  which  radiated  from  her  soul 
through  her  eyes,  she  could  not  speak  of  him 
without  tears.  Nor  did  she  at  any  time  show 
any  forgetfulness  of  him.  She  wrote  him  every 
day,  and  posted  her  letters  at  every  stopping- 
place  on  that  long  journey  to  India. 

Travelling  makes  people  as  well  acquainted 
as  marriage  does,  and  by  the  time  Captain  and 
Mrs.  Darrell  and  Pelham  reached  Marseilles, 
Pelham  knew  Elizabeth  quite  as  well  as  Darrell 
did,  and  understood  her  far  better.  It  was  a 
delightful  but  saddening  joy  to  Pelham  when  he 
found  Elizabeth  soon  turning  to  him,  rather  than 
to  Darrell,  to  answer  her  intelligent  questions. 
In  fact,  Darrell  himself,  when  she  asked  him, 
[43] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

would  say,  "  Pelham  will  tell  you  ;  he  knows  a 
lot  more  about  those  old  classic  beggars  and 
Greek  cads  and  ruffians  than  I  do."  Elizabeth 
still  found  Darrell  the  most  charming  man  in  the 
world. 

It  was  at  Marseilles  on  a  late  afternoon  in 
early  March  that  Darrell  said  this  to  Elizabeth. 
The  three  were  sitting  at  a  table  on  the  terrace 
of  a  cafe  overlooking  the  old  harbor,  with  its 
crumbling  Vauban  forts.  The  ships'  lights  were 
twinkling  against  the  dark  blue  of  the  water  and 
the  darker  blue  of  the  sky,  while  afar  off  they 
could  see  faintly  the  outline  of  the  Chateau  d'lf, 
where  Monte  Christo  learned  his  language  of  the 
Abbe.  Pelham  had  been  telling  Elizabeth  the 
story  of  the  city.  The  ancient  Massilia,  inhab- 
ited by  a  people  whose  talk  was  not,  as  the  old 
Greek  wrote,  of  seed-time  or  ploughing  or  har- 
vest, but  of 

"  Mast  and  helm  and  oar-bench, 
And  the  stately  ships  wherein 
They  have  all  joy  and  pleasure 
O'er  the  wet  sea  way  to  win." 

Elizabeth,   with  the   keen   delight   of  a  mind 
newly  awakened  to  books  and  travel,  was  capable 
of  enjoying  both.     Her  childhood  and  first  girl- 
hood had  been  spent  in  a  secluded  country  house, 
[44] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

where  the  books  were  few  and  old  and  of  little 
value.  The  two  or  three  years  she  had  spent  in 
Washington  since  her  father's  return  from  Egypt, 
enriched  only  by  his  Egyptian  bonds,  had  not 
been  of  a  sort  to  develop  her  mind.  They  had 
chiefly  been  spent  in  dancing  and  flirting  ;  but 
Elizabeth,  with  the  Southern  girl's  inevitable 
tendency  both  to  dance  and  flirt,  had  that  which 
often  goes  with  it,  a  depth  of  intelligence  and  a 
serious  understanding.  It  was  a  like  seriousness 
of  understanding  in  Pelham  which  attracted  her 
so  powerfully.  Darrell,  whom  she  still  thought, 
and  was  to  think  for  some  time  to  come,  the  most 
charming  man  in  the  world,  was  never  serious 
about  anything  except  dogs  and  horses  and  Eliza- 
beth. He  took  everything  easily,  especially  life 
and  death,  and  would  have  ridden  up  to  a  roaring 
battery  or  into  any  other  of  the  many  mouths  of 
hell  with  a  smile  upon  his  lips.  He  did  not  quite 
understand  why  Elizabeth,  in  the  midst  of  her 
bridal  joy,  often  shed  tears  for  her  father,  and 
although  never  showing  the  least  impatience  at 
it,  or  aught  but  the  tenderest  kindness,  wondered 
why  she  should  want  anybody  but  him,  as  he 
wanted  no  one  but  her. 

He  was,  like  many  men  of  his  kind,  perfectly 
modest,  too  high-minded  if  not  too  large-minded 
[45] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

for  jealousy,  and  thought  it  the  most  natural  thing 
in  the  world  that  Elizabeth  should  turn  to  Pel- 
ham  for  sympathy  and  information,  as  Darrell 
himself  had  always  done.  At  this  moment  he 
was  very  much  interested  in  Pelham's  account  of 
the  ancient  tunny  fisheries,  as  they  had  just  had 
among  their  hors-d'oeuvres  dried  tunny  fish,  as  well 
as  their  bouillabaisse.  Elizabeth  knew  something 
of  the  man  of  yesterday  who  had  made  bouilla- 
baisse immortal,  but  Darrell  was  surprised  to  hear 
that  Thackeray  had  ever  written  verse.  Pelham, 
sitting  next  Elizabeth  and,  although  habitually  a 
silent  man,  doing  most  of  the  talking,  began  to 
wonder  sadly  how  long  it  would  be  before  Eliza- 
beth became  desperately  bored  by  her  lover  hus- 
band. No  such  thought  entered  Elizabeth's  mind; 
she  only  deemed  herself  twice  fortunate  in  having 
the  companionship  of  such  a  friend  as  Pelham  as 
well  as  the  love  of  her  hero  husband  Darrell. 

Next  morning  they  sailed  through  Suez  for 
Bombay.  Elizabeth  proved  a  good  sailor  and 
spent  most  of  her  waking  hours  on  deck.  Darrell 
lay  back  in  his  steamer  chair  and  smoked,  being 
quite  satisfied  with  the  spectacle  of  his  charming 
Elizabeth  tripping  up  and  down  the  deck  and 
talking  with  Pelham.  The  other  passengers  were 
not  quite  certain  at  first  whose  wife  she  was. 
[46] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

As  they  sailed  over  the  blue  Mediterranean,  it 
was  Pelham  who  told  Elizabeth  when  they  would 
come  in  sight  of  Stromboli;  and  it  was  on  his  arm 
that  she  watched  before  da}^break  a  great,  pallid 
moon  sinking  into  the  black  world  of  waters  on 
the  west,  while  on  the  east  the  dun  sky,  across 
which  fled  great  ragged  masses  of  dark  clouds, 
was  lighted  by  the  vast  torches  of  Stromboli 
waving  like  a  blazing  head  of  Medusa.  Mean- 
while Darrell  was  sound  asleep  in  his  berth.  It 
would  have  taken  more  than  ten  Strombolis  to 
have  gotten  him  up  on  deck  at  that  hour.  But  a 
gun.  a  dog,  or  a  fishing-rod  would  have  kept  him 
up  all  night  and  made  him  as  alert  and  watchful 
as  if  his  life  depended  upon  the  issue.  It  was 
Pelham  who  showed  to  Elizabeth  the  sickle- 
shaped  port  of  Messina,  and  told  her  of  the  ancient 
coins  of  the  city,  which  bore  a  sickle  upon  them. 
And  together,  as  they  sailed  along  the  desolate 
shores  of  Crete,  they  followed  the  itinerary  of 
Paul  of  Tarsus. 

When  the  ship  made  its  slow  way  through  the 
Canal  to  Suez,  Darrell  was  roused  to  study  it 
from  the  aspect  of  a  military  man.  But  it  was 
Pelham,  who  had  more  military  science  in  his 
ugly  head  than  Darrell  had  in  his  whole  hand- 
some young  body,  who  watched  with  Elizabeth 
[47] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

the  red  flamingoes  rising  from  amid  the  tamerisk 
trees.  Once  out  of  the  Canal,  Darrell  again  re- 
sumed his  life  of  smoking,  sleeping,  eating,  and 
adoring  Elizabeth  ;  but  Elizabeth,  who  was  being 
educated  by  Pelham,  listened  with  the  eagerness 
of  an  intelligent  child  to  Pelham's  stories  of  those 
historic  lands  whose  bleak,  black-scarred,  and 
rocky  shores  border  the  Red  Sea.  He  told  her  of 
those  strange  Mohammedan  people  who  inhabit 
this  country,  where  nature  is  as  fierce  as  man,  and 
where  "  Allah  is  God  of  the  great  deserts,"  as 
Pierre  Loti  says,  —  those  people  in  whom  Islam 
is  incarnate.  Together  Elizabeth  and  Pelham 
watched  the  passage  around  Bab-el-Mandeb,  the 
"  Gate  of  tears." 

At  last,  on  a  hot,  bright  morning,  they  landed 
at  Bombay,  the  great  busy,  dirty  city,  and  after 
a  week's  travel  by  night  and  day  they  finished 
their  journey  at  Embira,  in  one  of  the  remotest 
depths  of  the  Punjaub.  Elizabeth  had  travelled 
far  and  fast,  since  that  January  night  when  both 
Pelham  and  Darrell  had  searched  for  the  little 
pearl  heart,  dropped  from  around  her  milk-white 
throat ;  but  she  had  travelled  farther  and  faster 
than  she  knew. 


[48] 


Chapter  Three 

EMBIEA  was  like  most  second  and  third  rate 
Indian  stations,  neither  better  or  worse.  There 
were  a  dirty  native  city,  where  plague  and  famine 
alternated ;  a  river  that  was  either  a  rushing  tor- 
rent or  as  dry  as  a  bone;  and  cantonments  which 
had  seen  little  change  since  the  Mutiny.  A  bat- 
talion of  Pelham  and  Darrell's  regiment  was 
stationed  there,  with  large  detachments  of  artil- 
lery and  cavalry. 

The  only  remarkable  thing  about  the  station 
was  that,  although  it  was  very  far  from  being 
garrisoned  by  any  part  of  a  crack  regiment,  the 
social  status  of  the  officers  and  their  wives  ap- 
peared to  be  almost  on  a  level  with  that  of  the 
household  troops.  The  wife  of  the  Colonel  com- 
manding was  the  niece  of  an  Earl  besides  being 
the  commanding  officer  of  the  C.  O.  There  were 
a  couple  of  titled  women  among  the  officers' 
wives,  and  no  less  than  two  subalterns  would 
inherit  baronetcies.  Neither  Pelham  nor  Darrell 
stood  any  chance  of  inheriting  his  grandfather's 
[49] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

title,  nor  did  there  seem  much  more  possibility 
of  DarreH's  inheriting  the  problematical  fortune 
which  was  the  staple  joke  between  Pelham  and 
himself. 

Darrell,  who  would  have  been  classed  as  a 
detrimental  in  London,  was  of  the  sort  to  be 
adored  by  the  young  ladies  of  the  post;  and  his 
appearance  with  a  bride,  and  that  with  scarcely 
a  day's  warning,  was  both  a  slight  and  a  griev- 
ance to  the  ladies  of  Embira.  And  an  American 
wife,  too!  It  was  the  aim  and  object  of  the 
ladies  to  maintain  the  social  tone  of  the  regi- 
ment, of  which  they  were  enormously  proud,  and 
here  was  Darrell,  the  grandson  of  a  peer,  intro- 
ducing a  person  among  them  whom  it  was  taken 
for  granted  he  had  met  in  the  wilds  of  the  Rocky 
Mountains  near  Philadelphia,  or  who  was  perhaps 
a  miner's  daughter  in  the  vicinity  of  Boston. 

It  was  in  this  critical  and  even  hostile  circle 
that  Elizabeth  made  her  first  appearance,  three 
days  after  her  arrival  at  Embira.  It  was  on  the 
occasion  of  the  regimental  sports,  which  were  ren- 
dered brilliant  by  the  presence  of  a  large  party  of 
visitors  from  England,  including  the  noble  Earl 
who  was  uncle  to  the  C.  O.'s  wife,  a  commissioner 
who  had  brought  his  own  new  wife  on  purpose  to 
eclipse  the  pretty  wife  of  the  deputy-commissioner, 
[50] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

and   a   vice-regal   aide-de-camp,  —  all  together  a 
brilliant  party  for  a  remote  Indian  station. 

The  afternoon  was  hot  and  bright,  but  the 
gardens  which  were  reserved  for  tea  and  flirta- 
tions were  still  unparched  and  the  white  polo 
grounds  adjoining  were  not  as  yet  dust  blinded. 
When  Elizabeth,  at  five  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
appeared  dressed  for  the  occasion,  on  the  veranda 
of  their  quarters,  Darrell  surveyed  her  with  pride 
and  pleasure,  not  unmixed  with  apprehension. 
She  looked,  it  is  true,  exquisitely  charming  in  her 
pale  green  muslin,  her  rose-crowned  hat,  her 
white  parasol,  and  with  her  little,  black,  silver- 
buckled  shoes,  a  model  of  daintiness  to  the  eyes 
of  the  Englishmen.  But  Darrell  also  felt  some 
anxiety;  he  suspected  that  she  would  be  coldly 
received  by  the  unkind  women  and  patronized  by 
the  kind  ones,  and  he  feared  that  Elizabeth  might 
be  as  crushed  by  both  as  an  English  girl  might 
have  been.  Pelham,  on  the  contrary,  who  under- 
stood Elizabeth  far  better  than  her  husband  did 
and  felt  even  a  deeper  pride  in  her  as  his  silent 
adoration  for  her  had  grown  deep  and  strong,  felt 
not  the  slightest  fear.  Elizabeth  was  in  manner 
and  bearing,  as  well  as  in  beauty,  far  above  the 
most  patrician  woman  at  the  station.  Every  other 
woman  except  herself  realized  and  recognized  that 
[51] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

there  was  some  one  above  her  in  station,  she 
was  of  necessity  the  social  inferior  of  somebody. 
Not  so  with  Elizabeth.  As  an  American  woman 
of  good  birth,  she  had  never  seen  or  heard  of  any 
one  who  was  above  her,  and  would  have  been  per- 
fectly at  her  ease  with  royalty  itself.  The  admir- 
ing glances  and  compliments  of  Pelham  and 
Darrell  flattered  Elizabeth  and  brought  the  wild- 
rose  color  to  her  creamy  cheeks ;  and  with  the  con- 
sciousness of  looking  her  best,  she  entered  the 
gardens  with  her  husband  walking  on  one  side  of 
her  and  Pelham  on  the  other,  and  was  duly 
presented  to  the  Colonel's  lady. 

There  is  perhaps  nowhere  in  the  world  that 
the  inability  of  Englishwomen  to  dress  well  and 
their  total  subjection  to  their  dressmakers  are  so 
obvious  as  in  India.  There  the  woollen  gowns 
which  look  well  on  an  autumn  day  among  the 
Scotch  hills,  and  the  tailor-made  dresses  which 
are  suited  for  Regent  Street  on  a  dull  morning, 
the  elaborate  silks  and  laces  which  are  fit  for 
London  drawing-rooms  and  theatres,  are  worn 
with  a  serene  unconsciousness  of  unfitness.  On 
this  hot  afternoon  the  ladies  of  Embira  had  put 
on  their  best, —  that  is  to  say,  their  worst  clothes 
as  far  as  unsuitability  went.  Hats  bristling  with 
feathers,  large  white  boas,  rustling  silks,  and 
[52] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

gorgeous  parasols  made  the  gardens  bright,  but 
made  the  wearers  look  half-baked.  Among  these 
came  Elizabeth's  delicate  green  muslin  and  airy 
lightness  of  attire.  The  men,  on  looking  at  her, 
felt  as  if  they  had  just  had  an  iced  drink.  The 
ladies  saw  that  she  had  accomplished  something 
quite  beyond  them  in  the  way  of  dress,  which,  as 
Darrell  half  feared,  made  the  unkind  determine 
to  be  more  icy  to  her  and  the  kind  even  more 
patronizing. 

The  Colonel's  lady,  a  vast  person  in  purple  silk 
and  a  collection  of  diamond  ornaments  which 
made  her  appear  as  if  covered  with  a  breastplate 
of  jewels,  was  one  of  the  latter  kind.  She  greeted 
Elizabeth  as  if  she  were  a  fifteen-year-old  school- 
girl who  must  needs  be  awed  by  all  she  saw  around 
her.  Elizabeth,  who  knew  well  the  cosmopolitan 
society  of  Washington  and  was  accustomed  to  see 
power  and  importance  classed  together,  was  in  no 
way  terrified  ;  nor  was  she  even  astonished  when 
the  Earl,  a  shabby  person  who  had  a  turbulent 
wife  whom  he  was  very  glad  to  leave  at  home, 
asked  to  be  introduced  to  Mrs.  Darrell. 

The  Colonel's  wife,  who  had  spent  the  whole  time 
of  her  uncle's  visit  trying  to  induce  him  to  be  in- 
troduced to  people  against  his  will,  was  staggered, 
but  promptly  agreed  to  his  proposition.  She 
[53] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

whispered  his  name  and  rank  in  Elizabeth's  ear 
and  advanced  a  step  or  two  towards  the  Earl,  but 
Elizabeth  quite  unconsciously  stood  perfectly  still 
and  had  the  Earl  brought  to  her  to  be  introduced, 
receiving  him  exactly  as  she  would  have  done 
some  of  the  numerous  pleasant  elderly  gentlemen 
whom  she  had  met  in  Washington.  The  Earl, 
who  was  not  without  humor,  saw  the  look  of 
amazement  on  the  face  of  the  Colonel's  lady  at 
Elizabeth's  calm  attitude  and  secretly  enjoyed  the 
situation.  He  was  an  easy-going  person  who  had 
but  one  requirement  on  the  face  of  the  earth,  and 
that  was  to  be  perpetually  amused  and  entertained. 
And  this  one  requirement  of  his  soul  was  amply 
satisfied  by  the  charming  young  American  girl. 
She  was  not  in  the  least  like  most  of  the  American 
girls  he  had  known  and  met  in  England,  who  were 
usually  the  daughters  of  retired  tradesmen  and 
rather  poor  imitations  of  Lady  Clara  Vere  de  Vere. 
The  Earl,  however,  much  to  his  chagrin  was  not 
allowed  to  have  Elizabeth  all  to  himself  and  was 
compelled  to  share  her  society  with  a  couple  of 
impudent  subalterns,  who  in  the  pursuit  of  a 
pretty  face  and  a  dainty  foot  feared  neither  man 
nor  devil. 

This  was  only  the  beginning  of  an  afternoon  of 
triumph  for  Elizabeth,  a  triumph  which  she  enjoyed 
[54] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

without  appreciating  its  true  significance.  She  had 
the  enormous  advantage  of  being  distinctly  differ- 
ent from  the  women  around  her,  and  of  having  the 
perfect  ease  which  comes  from  the  feeling  of  per- 
fect equality.  She  was  perhaps  the  best-born 
woman  of  all  those  present,  reckoning  good  birth 
to  mean  many  generations  of  people  at  the  top  of 
the  ladder.  Ever  since  the  first  Brandon,  a  decayed 
gentleman,  had  set  foot  on  American  soil  in  the 
days  of  Charles  I.,  the  Brandons  had  been  in  the 
front  rank,  with  none  better  than  themselves. 
The  Earl  himself  had  a  great-grandmother  who 
began  life  as  a  milliner's  apprentice  and  thence  pro- 
gressed to  the  London  stage.  But  Elizabeth's 
great-grandmothers  were  all  of  the  Brahmin  caste 
in  her  own  country.  The  ancestry  of  the  titles  in 
the  regiment  went  back  only  as  far  as  the  early 
part  of  the  eighteenth  century,  while  Elizabeth's 
ancestors  had  behind  them  already  some  hundreds 
of  years  as  gentle  people,  before  their  advent  into 
the  new  country.  It  was  that  perhaps  which  gave 
Elizabeth  the  patrician  nose  and  her  delicate  hands 
and  feet,  and  it  certainly  gave  her  that  perfect 
composure  of  manner  which,  unlike  Lady  Clara 
Vere  de  Vere's  icy  stateliness,  could  not  be  success- 
fully imitated  by  any  parvenu  who  ever  walked 
the  earth. 

[55] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Darrell  was  secretly  delighted  at  the  admiration 
which  Elizabeth  excited.  He  had  not  felt  so  great 
a  sensation  of  triumph  since  he  had  introduced 
into  the  regimental  mess  a  certain  Irish  setter 
with  a  pedigree  which  could  be  proved  back  to 
the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth.  Pelham,  who 
would  have  been  a  favorite  among  the  ladies  had 
he  allowed  it,  saw  everything  out  of  the  tail  of 
his  eye  and  was  rather  sorry  when  he  saw  the 
drift  of  men  towards  Elizabeth.  When  the  trio 
returned  to  Darrell's  quarters  through  the  soft 
Indian  twilight,  Darrell  was  openly  elated  and 
Elizabeth  secretly  so,  but  Pelham  felt  that  Eliza- 
beth's course  lay  in  dangerous  waters. 

And  Pelham  was  right.  Englishwomen  have 
their  charms  and  their  virtues,  both  of  which  are 
great  and  admirable,  but  they  have  no  sense  of 
comradeship.  Elizabeth  was  to  them  an  alien,  but 
instead  of  appealing  to  their  sympathies,  they  saw 
her  without  effort  easily  become  the  acknowledged 
belle  of  the  regiment.  There  was  little  in  com- 
mon beyond  the  mere  formal  exchange  of  cour- 
tesies between  herself  and  even  those  women  and 
girls  at  the  station  who  wished  to  be  kind  to  her. 
She  had  no  accomplishments  in  the  usual  sense. 
She  neither  played,  nor  sang,  nor  drew,  nor 
painted,  either  on  china,  fans,  screens,  or  picture 
[56] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

frames,  nor  could  she  do  anything  in  water  colors. 
She  had  no  taste  for  games,  and  would  not  take 
the  trouble  even  to  play  tennis.  She  disliked 
cards  and  would  not  play  bridge,  nor  was  she  in 
any  sense  the  athletic  woman  and  had  no  tales 
of  prowess  to  tell  of  tremendous  mountain  walks 
or  long  excursions  on  horseback.  She  rode  well 
in  a  graceful,  untaught  manner  which  improved 
distinctly  under  Darrell's  masterly  coaching,  but 
she  did  not  give  up  her  days  to  it  as  did  some  of 
the  girls  with  statuesque  figures  who  looked  their 
best  on  horseback. 

The  ladies  wondered  how  Mrs.  Darrell  disposed 
of  her  time.  If  they  could  have  taken  a  look 
into  Elizabeth's  own  sitting  room,  they  would 
have  seen  a  big  sewing-table ;  and  the  beautiful 
and  dainty  gowns  which  from  time  to  time  Mrs. 
Darrell  appeared  in,  and  the  immense  variety  of 
hats  which  caused  the  other  women  to  think  that 
she  was  squandering  her  husband's  substance, 
came  forth  from  that  sewing  room.  Instead  of 
drawing  trashy  pictures  and  embroidering  mats 
and  picture  frames,  Elizabeth  with  an  artist's  eye 
designed  and  made  beautiful  little  costumes  which 
looked  as  if  they  came  from  Regent  Street  or  the 
Rue  de  la  Paix.  Her  housekeeping,  too,  was  well 
attended  to,  and  the  little  dinners  which  she  occa- 
[57] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

sionally  gave  were  remarkably  good.  Her  mind 
had  not  been  much  cultivated,  but  under  Pelham's 
direction  she  learned  with  avidity  —  much  to  the 
amusement  of  Darrell,  who  protested  against  a 
learned  wife  and  predicted  that  Elizabeth  would 
soon  be  writing  a  novel  or  doing  some  other 
unholy  thing  likely  to  result  from  women  who 
meddled  with  books. 

Meanwhile  Elizabeth's  belle-ship  in  the  regi- 
ment became  firmly  established.  Her  charming 
appearance  and  her  graceful  and  affable  aianners 
with  men,  the  subtle  way  she  had  of  making 
every  man  believe  that  he  was  her  favorite,  went 
farther  with  the  officers  of  the  178th  Foot  than 
the  sketching,  painting,  playing,  and  singing  of 
the  other  women.  Her  manners  had  that  fasci- 
nating combination  known  only  to  American 
women,  and  possibly  the  secret  of  their  ascen- 
dency over  men,  of  something  between  an  appeal 
and  a  command ;  it  was  like  the  rule  of  a  favorite 
and  delightful  child  in  a  household.  It  may  be 
imagined  that  this  did  not  enhance  Elizabeth's 
popularity  with  her  own  sex. 

Elizabeth  wondered  and  was  piqued  at  the  cold- 
ness of  the  women  towards  her.     She  made  faint, 
ineffectual  attempts  at  intimacy  with  the  Colo 
nel's  daughters  and  the  wives  of  various  subal- 
[58] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

terns,  but  it  was  of  no  avail.  She  was  the 
daughter  of  the  regiment  as  far  as  the  officers 
were  concerned,  but  by  no  means  a  sister  of  the 
regiment  to  the  ladies.  Pelham  was  surprised 
that  the  tongue  of  scandal  passed  her  by,  but 
with  innocence  on  Elizabeth's  part,  and  a  couple 
of  able-bodied  men  like  Pelham  and  Darrell  to 
stand  by  her,  the  gossips  found  it  safe  to  let 
Mrs.  Darrell  alone. 

Elizabeth  was  for  a  time  quite  happy  in  her 
new  life,  her  only  sorrow  being  the  separation 
from  her  father.  She  wrote  him  passionate  let- 
ters imploring  him  to  come  to  see  her;  but  it 
costs  money  to  get  from  Washington  to  Embira 
in  the  Punjaub,  and  General  Brandon  was  chroni- 
cally hard  up.  And  so  her  life  moved  on,  almost 
as  closely  linked  with  Pelham's  as  with  Darrell's, 
for  two  years.  It  was,  however,  moving  in  a 
direction  which  Elizabeth  only  dimly  foresaw  and 
understood.  By  Pelham's  tact  and  judgment 
rather  than  her  own  there  never  was  a  breath 
of  scandal  concerning  their  deep  and  obvious 
intimacy.  Pelham  was  a  man  to  be  feared  as 
well  as  respected,  and  such  people  are  tolerably 
safe  from  criticism. 

Every  day  of  these  two  years  found  Pelham 
more  and  more  deeply  and  hopelessly  in  love 
[59] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

with  Elizabeth,  with  the  knightly  love  which 
would  guard  her  not  only  against  the  whole 
world  but  against  himself  and  herself;  for  in 
those  two  years  Elizabeth's  mind,  ripening  and 
developing,  perceived  that  she  had  married  a  man 
with  every  grace  and  virtue  joined  to  a  tiresome 
and  amiable  commonplaceness.  It  frightened 
her  sometimes  when  she  discovered  how  bored 
she  grew  by  her  husband's  conversation,  and  she 
was  still  more  frightened  at  the  prospect  which 
sometimes  occurred  to  her  of  being  separated 
from  Pelham,  on  whom  she  had  learned  to  de- 
pend as  other  women  depend  upon  a  brother  or 
a  father  or  even  a  husband.  But  she  was  not 
unhappy,  although  she  gradually  found  her  way 
out  of  the  lover's  paradise  into  which  she  had 
embarked  with  Darrell. 

For  Darrell  himself  she  never  lost  the  slightest 
respect.  He  was  as  truthful  and  honorable  and 
truly  unselfish  as  Pelham  himself  was.  Never- 
theless, at  the  end  of  two  years  came  the  begin- 
ning of  a  crisis.  A  beautiful  boy  was  born  to 
Elizabeth,  a  child  of  fairness  and  of  delightful 
temper.  "The  jolliest  little  chap  I  ever  saw," 
swore  Darrell  at  the  club,  when  the  baby  was  less 
than  a  week  old. 

Elizabeth  was  a  devoted  mother,  but  Darrell 
[60] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

was  the  most  passionately  fond  father  imagina- 
ble. The  child  merely  as  a  pet  was  worth  to 
him  more  than  all  the  dogs  and  horses  in  exist- 
ence, including  the  Irish  setter.  In  him  there 
was  a  deep  well-spring  of  fatherhood.  He  had 
thought  himself  perfectly  happy  before  the  boy 
was  born,  but  afterwards  he  felt  he  had  never 
known  what  true  happiness  was  until  then ;  and 
when  the  child  was  a  year  old  Darrell,  proudly 
calling  him  "  my  soldier,"  used  to  put  his  own 
cap  on  the  baby's  pretty  head  and  his  sword  in  its 
little  hand,  and  throw  his  military  cloak  around 
it  and  sit  and  gaze  in  rapture  at  the  child 
as  it  laughed  and  crowed,  delighted  with  its 
trappings. 

At  the  end  of  a  year,  like  a  judgment  from 
heaven,  the  child  died,  after  a  day's  illness.  In 
general  it  is  the  father  who  consoles  the  heart- 
broken mother,  but  in  this  case  it  was  Elizabeth 
who  kept  Darrell  sane  in  the  midst  of  his  terrible 
grief,  who  sat  by  him  day  and  night,  who  checked 
by  her  own  tears  his  strange  cries  of  grief,  and 
who  upheld  him  when  he  passed  through  the  deep 
waters.  She  herself  was  stricken  in  heart  as  only 
mothers  can  be,  and  she  had  a  presentiment  that 
she  would  never  again  have  a  child. 

Pelham,  who  would  cheerfully  have  borne  all 
[61] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

of  Elizabeth's  sorrow  at  the  boy's  death,  was 
amazed  and  even  indignant  that  Darrell  should 
not  have  sustained  her  in  this  dreadful  hour. 
Silently  and  with  a  sleepless  vigilance  and  con- 
stancy Pelham  supported  and  comforted  Elizabeth. 


[62] 


Chapter  Four 

THERE  was  no  one  else  to  sustain  Elizabeth. 
Darrell  needed  comforting  even  more  than  her- 
self. She  had  formed  no  intimacies  with  any 
of  the  ladies  of  the  station.  There  were  among 
them  many  kind  and  tender-hearted  women,  but 
a  barrier  had  grown  up  between  them  and  the 
stranger  from  America. 

Gradually  the  truth  was  beginning  to  dawn 
upon  Elizabeth,  that  she  depended  more  upon 
Pelham  than  upon  Darrell ;  that  is  to  say,  she 
had  married  the  wrong  man,  and  the  full  revela- 
tion of  this  terrible  truth  came  to  her  within  two 
months  of  the  time  that  she  was  left  childless. 
It  was  in  the  heat  of  summer,  and  Elizabeth  was 
one  of  those  two  or  three  of  the  officers'  wives, 
who  braved  the  terrors  of  the  hot  season  away 
from  the  hills  in  order  to  be  with  their  husbands. 

One  stifling  August  evening,  about  ten  o'clock, 

as   Elizabeth  was  walking  in  the  small   grounds 

around  their  bungalow,  the   moon  shining   upon 

the  tops  of  the  great  cypress  trees  which  skirted 

[63] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

the  grounds,  Pelham  came  down  the  steps  of  the 
veranda  at  the  back  of  the  house  and  joined  her. 
The  night  was  hot,  as  only  Indian  nights  can  be, 
but  Elizabeth  in  her  filmy  white  gown  looked 
cool.  She  was  as  graceful  and  charming  as  ever, 
for  the  touch  of  sorrow,  the  knowledge  of  disap- 
pointment, and  the  necessity  of  keeping  ceaseless 
watch  and  ward  upon  her  own  heart  had  added 
a  deeper  interest  to  her  beauty  while  robbing  her 
of  some  of  her  girlish  fairness.  Pelham,  who  was 
in  mufti,  wore  a  suit  of  white  linen,  and  the  two 
white  figures  could  be  seen  for  half  a  mile.  They 
had  not  met  since  morning,  a  long  time  for  them 
to  be  apart,  because  Pelham,  who  had  lived  with 
Darrell  after  the  manner  of  a  brother  before  his 
marriage,  had  continued  it  ever  since.  As  he 
came  up,  holding  his  straw  hat  in  his  hand,  Eliza- 
beth said  to  him  :  — 

"Where  have  you  been  all  day?  We  waited 
dinner  for  you  until  at  last  we  could  wait  no 
longer,  as  I  wanted  my  poor  Jack  to  go  to  the 
club.  It  doesn't  do  for  him  to  stay  in  this  house 
too  much." 

"I  have  been  hard  at  work  all  day,"  replied 

Pelham,  in  a  tired  voice.     "  I  got  a  letter  at  noon 

to-day,    offering    me    a    staff    appointment.      It 

would  be  a  very  good  thing,  a  great  thing,  and 

[64] 


.    SllE    CATGUT    HIM    BY    THE    ARM    AND    WHISPERED,     'AND 
COTLO    YOU    LEAVE    ME  ?  '  " 


MRS.  DARRELL 

I  have  been  studying  it  over  and  looking  things 
up  concerning  it  all  the  afternoon  and  evening. 
It  would  take  me  away  from  the  regiment  for 
a  good  many  years,  but  still  — " 

Elizabeth's  face  was  quite  plain  to  him  in  the 
white  moonlight.  She  was  already  pale  from 
the  heat  and  from  her  months  of  suffering,  but 
he  saw  a  total  change  of  expression,  a  look  of 
terror,  come  into  her  eyes.  It  was  unmistakable. 
Pelham  himself  had  long  known  how  things  were 
with  him,  and  it  was  chiefly  from  despair  that 
he  had  seriously  considered  that  day  tearing  him- 
self from  Elizabeth.  He  thought  she  would  miss 
him  as  a  woman  misses  a  friend  and  brother,  but 
something  in  her  sad  and  lovely  eyes  suddenly 
revealed  to  him  that  it  was  not  as  a  friend  and 
brother  she  would  miss  him,  but  as  the  being 
dearest  to  her  on  earth  ;  and  Pelham,  being  then 
tempted  of  the  devil,  asked  in  a  low  voice:  — 

"Elizabeth,  would  it  be  painful  to  you  if  we 
parted  ?  " 

Elizabeth,  staggered  at  the  quick  blow  which 
had  been  dealt  her,  made  full  revelation  of  all  she 
felt ;  she  caught  him  by  the  arm  and  whispered  : 
"  And  could  you  leave  me  ?  What  would  become 
of  me  ?  I  think  it  would  half  kill  me.  First  my 
child  was  taken,  and  now  you  —  " 
[65] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

She  paused,  recalled  to  herself  by  the  sound  of 
her  own  words.  She  dropped  Pelham's  arm  as 
quickly  as  she  had  taken  it  and  withdrew  from 
him  a  step.  They  looked  away  from  each  other, 
alarmed  and  ashamed  that  they  had  drawn  so  near 
the  brink  of  the  gulf.  But  the  winged  word  had 
been  spoken  ;  it  was  now  gone,  never  to  be  re- 
called. Neither  one  of  them  could  move  or  speak 
for  a  time.  Pelham  was  a  strong  man  and  Eliza- 
beth was  a  strong  woman,  and  they  loved  not  as 
weaklings  love  ;  their  hearts  were  not  to  be  con- 
quered in  an  instant.  They  remained  thus  for 
what  seemed  to  them  an  interminable  time. 
It  was  really  not  five  minutes.  Then  Pelham 
said  quietly  :  — 

"I  shall  remain  with  the  regiment." 

And  Elizabeth,  without  in  the  least  knowing 
what  she  was  saying,  replied,  "  Thank  God  ! " 

Then,  involuntarily  and  unable  to  bear  longer 
the  stress  of  the  situation,  they  both  turned  back 
to  the  house.  The  scene  had  lasted  all  told  five 
minutes  ;  it  was  in  full  sight  of  many  eyes  if  any 
had  cared  to  look;  but  for  both  of  them  it  had 
changed  the  face  of  creation  itself.  It  had  not, 
however,  changed  their  natures,  which  were  sin- 
gularly delicate  and  high-minded;  nor  had  it 
involved  them  in  any  dishonor. 
[66] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

As  they  entered  the  bungalow  together,  they 
met  Darrell,  who  had  noticed  them  walking 
through  the  shrubbery.  Elizabeth  went  up  to 
him,  and  placing  her  hand  on  his  shoulder,  a 
familiarity  she  had  never  used  before  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Pelham  or  any  other  human  being,  said  : 
"  I  am  so  glad  you  have  come  back ;  I  was  begin- 
ning to  feel  so  lonely  without  you.  After  this 
you  must  stay  with  me  more  than  you  have  done, 
because  I  am  never  really  happy  away  from  you." 

This  was  one  of  the  most  stupendous  lies  ever 
uttered  by  a  woman's  lips;  but  the  recording 
angel  had  no  occasion  to  shed  a  tear  over  it,  as  he 
inscribed  it  on  the  records  of  high  heaven.  A 
look  of  pleasure  came  into  DarreU's  honest,  sombre 
eyes.  It  was  not  often  that  love  like  this  sur- 
vived the  honeymoon,  and  Elizabeth  must  indeed 
be  deeply  in  love  with  him,  if  she  used  such  lan- 
guage before  Pelham.  He  put  his  arm  around 
her  slender  waist,  and  spoke  to  Pelham  instead 
of  her. 

"  You  miserable  dog,"  he  said,  "  why  don't  you 
get  a  wife  like  mine  ?  " 

Pelham,  with  a  smile  upon  his  dark,  expres- 
sive, and  somewhat  homely  face,  answered  quite 
naturally,  "Because  I  can't  find  a  wife  like 
yours," 

[67] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

From  that  day,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  Eliza- 
beth was  a  true  wife  of  an  honorable  man,  her 
whole  life  was  irradiated  by  the  joy  of  knowing 
that  she  was  loved  by  Pelham  and  even  that  she 
loved  him  in  return.  It  made  them  both  careful 
in  a  thousand  ways  where  heretofore  they  had 
been  without  thought.  It  made  Elizabeth  the 
sweetest  as  well  as  the  most  dutiful  wife  imagi- 
nable to  Darrell.  Her  constant  ministrations  to 
him,  her  untiring  efforts  to  please  him,  did  more 
than  he  thought  possible  to  soothe  his  grief  over 
the  dead  child. 

Elizabeth  had  always  been  kind  and  flattering 
to  Darrell's  friends,  not  only  out  of  respect  for 
him,  but  from  the  pleasure  which  every  woman 
takes  in  exercising  the  conscious  power  to  please. 
But  now  she  was  if  anything  more  attractive  to 
them  than  ever,  and  Darrell  enjoyed  a  delight 
most  gratifying  to  his  pride  in  finding  himself  the 
preferred  admirer  of  a  charming  wife  who  was 
admired  by  every  man  who  knew  her.  Elizabeth 
felt,  without  one  word  being  spoken,  that  her  con- 
duct was  approved  by  Pelham.  She  sometimes 
suspected  what  Pelham  never  did,  that  he,  rather 
than  she,  deserved  credit  for  the  lofty  purity  of 
their  relations,  and  doubted  whether  after  all 
Pelham  were  not  stronger  in  a  sense  of  honor 
[68] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

and  rectitude  even  than  herself,  so  great  was  his 
mastery  over  her.  For,  after  all,  the  greatest 
power  which  one  human  being  can  exercise  over 
another  is  the  power  of  uplifting  and  making 
better ;  and  such  Elizabeth  felt  was  Pelham's  in- 
fluence over  her,  just  as  Pelham  felt  that  Eliza- 
beth was  his  guardian  angel. 

The  Darrells  and  Pelham  spent  all  together 
four  years  at  Embira.  Every  year  Elizabeth 
thought  she  would  be  able  to  return  to  America 
to  see  her  father,  if  for  only  a  few  weeks,  but 
every  year  the  Darrell  exchequer  showed  the  impos- 
sibility of  this.  Their  narrow  means  did  not  per- 
mit them  to  travel,  or  even  to  entertain  except  in 
the  simplest  manner,  and  Elizabeth  only  remained 
well  dressed  from  the  fact  that  she  knew  how  to 
make  her  own  gowns  better  than  most  Regent 
Street  dressmakers.  They  often  joked  and 
laughed  about  their  old  relative  Lady  Pelham's 
fortune,  which  was  to  come  first  to  Darrell,  and, 
failing  a  son  and  heir,  to  Pelham.  Darrell  dole- 
fully related  how  Lady  Pelham's  mother  had  lived 
to  be  ninety-six,  and  her  father  to  be  ninety-seven, 
and  not  one  of  her  uncles  or  aunts  had  died  under 
ninety  years  of  age,  while  the  lady  herself  was 
not  more  than  fifty  years  of  age  and  reckoned  the 
most  robust  woman  in  England.  They  built 
[69] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

castles  in  the  air,  of  what  they  would  do  when 
they  got  the  Pelham  fortune,  and  Darrell  tried  to 
induce  Pelham  to  agree  to  a  division  of  the  spoils 
in  advance.  It  was  a  great  joke  ;  but  one  day, 
nearly  nine  years  after  Elizabeth's  marriage,  death 
came  to  the  three  lives  which  stood  between 
Darrell  and  Lady  Pelham's  money,  and  Darrell 
came  into  the  life  estate  of  a  fortune  of  forty 
thousand  pounds. 


[70] 


Chapter  Five 

AFTER  nine  years  in  India  one  is  glad  to  get 
back  to  England,  particularly  as  Darrell,  in  spite 
of  the  large  stock  of  health  and  spirits  which  he 
took  from  England  with  him,  had  found  as  most 
men  do  in  India  that  he  had  a  liver.  Elizabeth 
had  remained  perfectly  well  during  all  the  nine 
years  of  her  life  under  the  hard  blue  Indian  skies. 
She  was  now  in  her  thirtieth  year,  and  Darrell  was 
nearly  forty.  Their  attachment  had  assumed  the 
fixed  and  settled  form  which  nine  years  of  con- 
stant association  and  respect  must  inevitably  pro- 
duce in  every  marriage.  There  were  no  jars  or 
disagreements  between  them,  and  except  for  the 
absence  of  children  Darrell  reckoned  his  domestic 
life  absolutely  perfect. 

Pelham,  who  like  Darrell  was  now  a  major  with 
a  lieutenant-colonelcy  in  sight,  knew  that  the  time 
had  come,  if  he  was  ever  to  see  anything  of  the 
world  beyond  India,  England,  and  his  flying  trip 
to  the  United  States,  for  him  to  start  upon  his 
travels.  In  one  way  he  was  no  longer  necessary 
[71] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

to  Elizabeth,  as  she  was  now  a  trained  and  experi- 
enced woman,  —  the  least  likely,  he  thought,  of 
any  woman  in  the  world,  to  make  a  false  step  of 
any  kind.  Elizabeth  herself,  although  she  had 
never  ceased  to  depend  on  Pelham,  had  developed 
under  his  tutelage,  so  that  she  was  in  many  ways 
able  to  stand  without  him  ;  and,  not  being  a  woman 
to  keep  a  man  at  her  side  without  cause,  she  en- 
couraged Pelham  in  his  desire  to  travel. 

The  three  returned  to  England  together.  After 
being  established  in  the  fine  London  house  which 
was  a  part  of  their  inheritance,  Elizabeth's  first 
thought  was  for  her  father.  It  was  in  the  spring- 
time that  the  Darrells  arrived  in  Europe,  and  a 
delightful  plan  was  arranged  by  which  Elizabeth 
was  to  send  for  General  Brandon,  and  he  with  the 
Darrells  and  Pelham  were  to  begin  in  August  a 
three  months'  journey  on  the  Continent.  Eliza- 
beth, whose  mind  was  now  well  formed  and  fur- 
nished, looked  forward  with  eagerness  to  seeing 
the  brilliant  capitals  of  Continental  Europe, — 
those  spots  of  romantic  beauty  and  poetic  sights, 
of  which  she  had  first  read  and  dreamed  in  the  old 
country  house  in  Virginia  and  afterwards  under 
the  solemn  deodars  and  in  the  shady  bungalows  of 
the  Punjaub. 

DarreU's  health  improved  wonderfully  from  the 
[72] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

day  he  arrived  in  England,  and  it  was  thought  that 
this  Continental  tour  would  restore  him  to  the 
physical  perfection  which  he  originally  possessed. 
They  found  London  delightful,  as  London  is  apt 
to  be  with  youth,  good  looks,  beauty,  and  forty 
thousand  pounds.  Pelham  had  his  own  lodgings 
near  them,  but  Darrell's  house  was  home  to  him. 
He  saw  almost  as  much  of  Elizabeth  as  in  the 
years  when  they  lived  in  cantonments  together, 
but  both  Elizabeth  and  Darrell  were  fonder  of 
society  than  Pelham.  After  they  had  breakfasted, 
Darrell  and  Elizabeth  went  together  shopping,  a 
novel  and  delightful  experience  to  both  of  them  ; 
and  they  generally  carried  Pelham  along  with 
them,  much  to  his  disgust.  They  always  referred 
things  to  him  and  never  took  his  advice. 

Darrell  loved  to  adorn  Elizabeth's  beauty,  and 
one  of  the  things  which  gave  him  the  most  pleas- 
ure was  the  making  of  a  fine  diamond  and  pearl 
necklace  for  his  wife's  white  throat.  He  had 
inherited  a  diamond  necklace  along  with  the 
Pelham  properties.  To  these  he  added  other 
stones  and  some  fine  pearls.  Elizabeth  insisted 
that  the  pretty  pearl  brooch  which  had  been  her 
wedding  gift  from  Darrell  should  be  included  in 
the  necklace,  and  they  spent  hours  together  at  the 
jeweller's  planning  the  making  of  the  necklace. 
[73] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Pelham  stood  by  listening  good-naturedly,  and 
never  suggesting  any  reduction  in  expense  where 
Elizabeth's  wishes  were  concerned. 

When  August  came,  however,  Darrell  was  not 
so  well,  but  he  was  eager  for  the  Continental 
tour,  upon  which  Elizabeth  had  set  her  heart. 
Elizabeth,  however,  would  not  hear  of  his  going, 
and  as  Pelham's  leave  was  limited  he  would  be 
forced  to  go  without  the  Darrells.  The  doctors 
had  not  absolutely  said  that  Darrell  should  not 
go,  but  considered  it  best  that  he  remain  in 
England  ;  it  was  Elizabeth's  over-solicitude  for 
Darrell  which  really  induced  her  to  give  up  a  plan 
so  dear  not  only  to  her,  but,  as  she  well  knew, 
to  Pelham  also.  It  cost  her  far  more  to  deny 
Pelham  than  to  deny  herself,  and  this  he  well 
understood  ;  for  by  that  time  they  read  each  other 
like  an  open  book,  although  no  word  of  love  had 
been  spoken  between  them  after  that  sudden  out- 
break of  their  hearts  on  that  night  now  eight  years 
past  when,  standing  in  the  solemn  gloom  of  the 
cypress  trees  in  the  sultry  Indian  night,  they  had 
uttered  unforgetable  words.  Pelham  never  felt 
prouder  of  Elizabeth  and  her  forgetfulness  of  self 
than  on  the  day  she  told  him  of  her  decision  about 
thgContinental  tour,  in  her  pretty  London  draw- 
ing-room, in  which  she  fitted  beautifully.  It  was 
[74] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

so,  as  Pelham  thought,  that  she  fitted  every  place 
in  which  he  had  seen  her. 

"  You  know  how  delightful  it  would  be  for  us 
to  go,"  —  she  always  spoke  of  "  us,"  Darrell  and 
herself  being  in  fact  never  separated,  —  "  but  the 
doctor  says  it  wouldn't  be  the  best  thing  for  Jack  ; 
he  would  be  sure  to  overdo  it,  and  that  is  what  I 
don't  intend  to  let  him  do." 

"  Elizabeth,"  said  Pelham,  after  a  pause,  "  I 
think  you  are  all  in  all  the  best  wife  I  ever  knew." 

"  Why  shouldn't  I  be  a  good  wife  —  haven't  I 
the  best  husband  in  the  world?  Jack  often  re- 
minds me  of  my  father,  who  has  just  such  an 
open,  frank,  simple  nature  as  Jack's,  —  one  of 
those  natures  which  nobody  fears  and  yet  of 
which  everybody  is  a  little  afraid." 

"  That  is  true,"  replied  Pelham.  "  Jack  as  a  lit- 
tle fellow  was  the  straightest  lad  I  ever  knew.  If 
your  boy  had  lived,  I  think  he  would  have  been  as 
straight  a  little  fellow  as  Jack." 

Elizabeth's  eyes  filled.  She  had  not  yet  learned 
to  bear  unmoved  any  mention  of  the  child,  who 
was  quite  forgotten  by  all  except  Darrell,  Pel- 
ham,  and  herself.  Just  then  Darrell  entered 
from  riding.  He  was  neither  as  handsome  nor 
as  young-looking  as  he  had  been  ten  years  be- 
fore; and  Pelham,  who  never  had  been  hand- 
[75] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

some  or  particularly  good-looking,  was  now  quite 
gray  and  looked  as  if  he  had  been  baked  in  an 
oven,  but  he  had  the  clearest,  kindest  eye  and 
the  firmest  thin-lipped,  sensible  mouth,  which 
redeemed  his  face  from  positive  ugliness.  Eliza- 
beth was  no  longer  a  girl,  but  with  the  same 
striking  and  touching  beauty  of  her  girlhood. 

"  So,"  said  Darrell,  after  kissing  Elizabeth's 
hand,  "you  are  leaving  us  next  week.  By  gad, 
I  wish  I  were  going  with  you,  but  Elizabeth 
won't  hear  of  it.  Now  if  I  had  married  an  Eng- 
lish wife  instead  of  an  American,  she  would  have 
let  me  do  as  I  please." 

"  And  make  yourself  ill,"  replied  Elizabeth. 
w  But  if  you  will  take  care  of  yourself  and  do  all 
I  tell  you,  perhaps  in  the  autumn  I  may  take  you 
to  the  Continent." 

"But  Pelham  won't  be  with  us." 

"You're  very  complimentary,"  replied  Eliza- 
beth, with  a  cheering  air  of  coquetry.  "  Ten 
years  ago  you  could  get  along  with  only  me. 
Now  you  must  have  Pelham  and  I  don't  know 
how  many  other  men  to  keep  you  from  being 
bored  to  death."  Such  speeches  are  common 
when  husband  and  wife  are  sure  of  each  other. 

It  was  the  next  evening  at  dinner  time  that 
around  the  table  Darrell  began  to  tell  of  an 
[76] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

expedition  into  West  Africa  which  he  had  heard 
talked  of  at  the  club.  It  would  be  partly  pri- 
vate and  partly  governmental,  and  would  require 
more  than  a  year's  absence  from  England.  Pel- 
ham's  grave  eyes  lighted  up  as  the  story  went 
on.  He  had  an  indestructible  love  of  bold  ad- 
venture, and  he  had  no  more  been  able  to  indulge 
his  fondness  and  taste  than  he  had  been  able  to 
indulge  his  fondness  for  intelligent  travel.  Eliza- 
beth, with  prophetic  intuition,  saw  that  the  idea 
had  taken  hold  of  Pelham's  imagination.  She 
felt  assured  that  if  she  were  to  make  the  same  ap- 
peal that  she  had  done  unconsciously  in  the  garden 
that  night  at  Embira,  Pelham  would  not  resist  it, 
and  would  remain  in  England  with  her ;  but  she 
was  of  too  generous  a  nature  to  wish  to  hold  him 
back  from  what  would  be  an  advantage  as  well  as 
a  strong  man's  delight  to  him.  She  was  not  sur- 
prised, therefore,  when  Pelham  turned  up  next 
day,  to  hear  that  he  had  been  to  the  War  Office 
and  had  been  looking  into  the  West  African 
expedition. 

Pelham  spent  a  fortnight  making  inquiries,  and 
then  one  night,  as  he  and  Darrell,  with  Elizabeth 
sitting  by  them,  sat  over  their  cigars  on  the  bal- 
cony of  the  morning-room,  he  told  the  story  of 
what  he  had  heard  of  the  expedition.  The  com- 
[77] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

mand  of  the  expedition  had  practically  been 
offered  him,  and  it  was  a  tremendous  opportu- 
nity and  one  not  likely  to  occur  again  to  a  man 
of  his  age,  for  his  fortieth  birthday  was  upon 
him.  It  would  mean  much  to  him  in  the  way 
of  his  profession,  upon  which  he  was  entirely 
dependent,  —  that  is,  unless  Darrell  should  die 
without  an  heir.  Its  opportunities  in  every  way 
were  such,  and  the  offer  made  him  so  flattering, 
that  it  was  out  of  the  question  that  he  should 
decline  them  unless  there  were  some  specific  rea- 
son. Darrell  told  him  so. 

There  were  steps  from  the  balcony  leading 
down  into  a  little  lawn  with  a  bench  at  the  far- 
ther end.  Elizabeth  quietly  rose  and,  walking 
down  the  steps,  passed  to  the  farther  end  of  the 
gravelled  path  and  back  again.  It  was  a  June 
night,  warm  for  London,  but  cool  compared  with 
that  other  sultry  night  when  the  question  had 
first  been  raised  of  Pelham's  departure  from  her 
for  a  long  time.  After  a  while  Pelham  rose  and 
said  to  Darrell,  "I  will  go  and  ask  Elizabeth  what 
she  thinks  of  it." 

"Do,"  said  Darrell.  "I  bet  you  five  to  one 
she  will  tell  you,  just  as  I  have  done,  that  it  is 
the  greatest  chance  you  ever  had  in  your  life." 

Pelham  followed  Elizabeth  down  the  gravelled 
[78] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

path  to  the  little  iron  bench  under  an  odorous 
hedge  of  rose  trees,  where  she  sat.  There  was 
no  moon,  but  the  starlight  made  a  softened  radi- 
ance around  them.  He  sat  down  by  her  and 
said  in  his  usual  quiet  voice  and  laconic  manner, 
"Elizabeth,  what  do  you  think  of  my  accepting 
the  West  African  offer?" 

"  I  think  you  ought  to  accept  it,"  replied  Eliza- 
beth, in  a  soft  voice. 

Not  another  word  was  spoken  for  five  minutes, 
and  then  they  rose  and  walked  back  to  the  bal- 
cony, where  Darrell's  cigar  still  glowed.  Each 
understood  the  other  perfectly.  That  day  fort- 
night Pelham  started  for  West  Africa,  giving  up 
his  Continental  tour.  The  London  season  was  in 
full  swing,  and  Darrell,  who  was  naturally  fond 
of  society,  liked  to  go  out;  nor  was  this  pro- 
hibited, in  moderation,  by  the  medical  men. 
Elizabeth,  too,  liked  society;  and  besides,  now 
that  Pelham  was  gone,  she  felt  the  need  of 
contact  with  other  minds  and  natures. 


[79] 


Chapter  Six 

ELIZABETH  was  under  no  uneasiness  concern- 
ing Pelham.  The  West  African  expedition  was 
one  of  great  responsibility,  but  of  trifling  danger, 
and  Elizabeth  had  the  highest  respect  for  Pel- 
ham's  ability  to  take  care  of  himself.  The 
thought  had  been  in  her  mind,  as  it  was  in  Pel- 
ham's,  that  she  was  far  better  prepared  to  do 
without  him  then  than  in  those  earlier  days  when 
she  had  been  a  stranger  in  a  strange  land.  Such 
indeed  was  the  case,  but  ten  years  of  close  com- 
panionship and  reliance  on  Pelham's  judgment 
and  kindness  for  almost  every  act  of  her  life  had 
bred  in  Elizabeth  a  dependence  which  she  did  not 
fully  realize  until  he  was  gone.  It  was  as  if  the 
sun  had  dropped  out  of  the  heavens  when  he  was 
away.  In  Darrell  she  had  the  companionship  of 
a  husband  who  adored  her,  but  who  except  for 
his  love  could  not  give  her  the  least  assistance  in 
any  other  way;  while  with  Pelham  it  was,  besides 
the  intimacy  of  a  great,  unspoken  love,  the  ever 
present  aid  of  sound  sense,  good  judgment,  and 
a  cultivated  mind. 

[80] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

Elizabeth,  with  her  youth  and  beauty  and  her 
natural  taste  for  gayety  and  admiration,  could  not 
but  find  the  London  season  charming;  and  as  for 
Darrell,  it  seemed  the  very  wine  of  life  to  him 
to  be  once  more  in  England.  They  were  invited 
everywhere,  and  had  pleasure  in  returning  the 
hospitality  offered  them.  As  regarded  their  in- 
come the  Darrells,  it  is  true,  had  a  large  one,  as 
the  late  Lady  Pelham  was  supposed  to  have  left 
about  forty  thousand  pounds;  but  it  was  hampered 
in  many  ways,  as  the  late  Lady  Pelham  was  one  of 
those  persons  who  try  to  transact  business  after 
they  are  dead  and  buried. 

Darrell  knew  nothing  of  business,  and  seemed 
incapable  of  learning.  He  spent  money  liberally 
for  himself  and  more  liberally  still  for  Elizabeth. 
She  had  only  to  express  a  wish  for  it  to  be  grati- 
fied. Darrell  desired  to  cover  her  with  jewels, 
but  Elizabeth  with  better  taste  preferred  to  wear 
only  one  ornament,  the  handsome  diamond  and 
pearl  necklace  which  seemed  so  peculiarly  hers. 
Of  the  new  gems  in  it,  she  and  Darrell  and  Pelham 
had  spent  hours  examining  and  deciding;  and  the 
idea  of  inserting  in  it  her  wedding  gift  of  a  pearl 
brooch,  was  Elizabeth's  entirely  and  she  was 
proud  of  it.  Darrell,  who  grew  more  in  love 
with  his  wife  each  day,  was  charmed  at  this  bit 
[81] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

of  sentiment,  on  which  they  had  united  in  defeat- 
ing the  jeweller. 

On  the  night  before  the  Goodwood  races,  there 
was  a  great  ball  at  Marlborough  House,  to  which 
Elizabeth  and  Darrell  were  commanded.  Never 
had  Elizabeth  looked  handsomer.  A  black  even- 
ing gown  showed  off  the  perfections,  the  exquisite 
beauty,  of  her  white  shoulders  and  slender  arms. 
The  necklace  around  her  milky  white  throat  looked 
like  moonlight  and  starlight  combined. 

"  You  will  make  a  sensation  to-night,  my  girl," 
said  Darrell,  kissing  her. 

"  If  you  like  my  looks,  that  is  the  main  point," 
replied  Elizabeth.  She  habitually  made  him 
these  pretty  speeches,  which  was  gratifying  to 
Darrell,  as  the  husband  of  a  beauty. 

They  went  to  the  ball,  which  had  a  gayety 
unsurpassed  in  balls.  It  established  Elizabeth's 
place  in  society  as  one  of  the  beauties  of  the 
season.  She  received  vast  attention  from  those 
London  exquisites  who  claim  to  fix  a  woman's 
place  in  beauty's  calendar.  She  was  noticed, 
admired,  and  conversed  with  by  royalty  itself, 
and  the  Prince  having  thus  set  his  mark  of  ap- 
proval on  her,  Elizabeth's  title  as  a  London  beauty 
was  settled  beyond  cavil.  She  enjoyed  it  thor- 
oughly, of  course  ;  but  the  image  of  Pelham  did 
[82] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

not  leave  her  mind.  She  would  turn  her  head 
in  the  midst  of  the  splendor  and  magnificence  of 
the  ball,  wishing  to  herself,  "  Could  I  but  see  him 
now!" 

The  ball  lasted  late,  and  it  was  not  over  until 
night  had  flown  and  the  rosy  dawn  had  come. 
Elizabeth  was  one  of  the  few  women  sufficiently 
natural  to  look  well  after  a  night  of  dancing,  and 
she  looked  as  fresh  as  the  dawn  itself  when  she 
stepped  into  her  carriage.  Not  so  Darrell,  who 
appeared  so  wearied  that  Elizabeth  reproached 
herself  at  not  having  left  earlier. 

"  I  didn't  wish  to  bring  you  away,"  he  said  with 
his  usual  kindness  of  tone.  "Nine  years  in  the 
Punjaub  entitles  you  to  some  indulgences,  and 
besides  I  was  proud  of  you.  I  like  to  see  you 
happy  and  admired." 

Elizabeth  laid  her  head  on  his  shoulder  in  the 
seclusion  of  the  brougham,  and  Darrell,  after  a 
pause,  said  in  a  low  voice:  "This  is  the  anniver- 
sary of  the  boy's  death.  I  wouldn't  speak  of  it 
before,  Elizabeth,  but  I  hadn't  forgotten  it." 

"And  I,"  said  Elizabeth,  her  heart  suddenly  turn- 
ing to  the  dead  child,  sleeping  under  the  cypress 
trees  in  tlje  military  cemetery  at  Embira,  "  had  not 
forgotten  it,  but  I  hoped  that  you  had,  dearest." 

They  talked  together  for  a  little  while  of  their 
[83] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

lost  darling,  as  the  parents  of  dead  children  do, 
and  then  Darrell  suddenly  grew  quiet.  Elizabeth 
thought  he  was  asleep,  and  would  not  move  for 
fear  she  might  disturb  him.  When  she  reached 
their  own  door,  she  raised  her  head  from  his 
shoulder.  Darrell  was  dead. 

Of  all  that  happened  in  the  succeeding  weeks, 
Elizabeth  had  afterward  but  a  confused  recollec- 
tion. She  was  stunned  by  the  blow  and  deeply 
grieved.  Although  she  had  long  ceased  to  return 
DarreH's  affection  in  kind,  yet  she  had  a  deep 
love  for  him.  It  was  so  deep,  so  sincere,  so  un- 
selfish, that  his  death  could  not  fail  to  be  a  heavy 
grief  to  her,  —  the  heaviest  but  one  that  she  could 
know:  that  other  was  Pelham's.  Her  sorrow  was 
not  joined  with  remorse.  She  had  honestly  and 
earnestly  devoted  her  life  to  Darrell,  and  felt  sure 
that  she  had  made  him  happy;  but  nevertheless 
it  was  a  deep  and  sincere  sorrow. 

Her  first  thought  had  been  naturally  and  in- 
evitably for  Pelham.  She  was  so  ignorant  of 
business,  so  absolutely  untrained  in  affairs,  and 
so  much  a  stranger  in  England,  that  she  scarcely 
knew  where  to  turn.  Darrell  had  plenty  of  rela- 
tives, but  Elizabeth  had  never  known  them,  except 
during  her  few  short  months  in  England,  and 
[84] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

none  of  them  were  particularly  near  Darrell  either 
in  blood  or  friendship.  His  grandfather  was 
long  since  dead,  and  the  cousin  who  inherited  the 
title  was  in  West  Africa.  From  the  beginning 
Elizabeth  seemed  overwhelmed  with  difficulties, 
with  annoying  details  which  she  was  called  upon 
to  decide  without  having  the  slightest  experience 
in  them.  She  knew  nothing  of  the  value  of 
money,  having  had  but  little  until  she  came  into 
what  seemed  to  both  Darrell  and  herself  an  enor- 
mous fortune.  She  knew  not  what  she  had  spent 
nor  what  she  was  spending.  Thus,  as  in  every- 
thing else,  could  she  have  only  turned  to  Pelham 
and  asked  him  what  to  do,  everything  would  have 
gone  right.  But  Pelham  was  in  West  Africa ;  it 
would  possibly  take  anywhere  from  four  to  five 
months  to  communicate  with  him,  nor  was  it 
possible  for  him  to  return  for  at  least  a  year  from 
the  time  he  had  started. 

It  was  Pelham,  however,  who  inherited  every- 
thing that  came  from  Lady  Pelham.  The  sole  pro- 
vision for  Elizabeth  was  about  one  hundred  pounds 
a  year,  which  was  Darrell's  own  small  inheritance. 
But  the  fact  that  Pelham  was  the  sole  heir 
relieved  Elizabeth's  mind  when  it  was  brought 
home  to  her  that  she  would  be  obliged  to  account 
for  everything  Darrell  and  she  had  received,— 
[85] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

every  chair  and  table  in  Lady  Pelham's  house, 
and  every  jewel,  however  trifling.  Elizabeth,  who 
was  as  high-minded  as  she  was  inexperienced, 
desired  to  hand  over  everything  to  Pelham  direct, 
but  she  knew  him,  or  thought  she  knew  him,  too 
well  to  suppose  it  possible  that  he  should  make 
her  position  the  least  painful  or  embarrassing  to 
her.  In  the  first  weeks  of  her  widowhood,  when 
she  had  wished  to  remain  alone  in  her  London 
house,  entirely  secluded  from  the  world  and  its 
affairs,  she  was  forced  to  see  solicitors,  attorneys, 
business  men,  and  persons  of  all  sorts.  Some  of 
these  presented  unpaid  bills  for  large  amounts,  and 
foremost  among  the  intruders  was  one  Andrew 
McBean,  a  Scotch  attorney  who  was  Pelham's 
agent. 

This  man,  with  his  persistence  and  insistence, 
annoyed  Elizabeth  almost  beyond  endurance  ;  but 
the  thing  which  troubled  her  most  was  the  con- 
tinual presenting  of  unpaid  bills.  She  gave  up 
her  carriage  and  sold  it  with  the  horses,  imagining 
in  her  simplicity  that  she  could  use  this  money  for 
the  payment  of  the  accounts  which  rained  upon  her 
every  day  ;  and  she  actually  did  so  use  this  money 
until  informed  by  McBean  that  she  had  sold 
Pelham's  property  and  misused  the  proceeds. 
This  McBean  said  to  her  one  day  in  her  own 
[86] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

drawing-room,  or  what  she  supposed  was  her 
own  drawing-room.  Elizabeth's  heart  fluttered 
with  terror  as  McBean  warned  her  that  she  would 
be  required  to  account  for  every  penny  of  this 
money  —  in  fact  of  all  the  money  that  she  was 
spending. 

She  had  that  morning,  in  despair,  taken  her 
diamond  and  pearl  necklace  to  a  jeweller's  agent, 
who  really  acted  as  an  amateur  pawn-broker,  and 
who  had  advanced  her  five  hundred  pounds  on  it. 
Had  McBean  asked  her  then  about  the  necklace, 
she  would  have  fainted  on  the  floor  ;  but  he  did 
not.  As  soon  as  he  had  gone,  Elizabeth,  in  her 
widow's  dress,  flew  pale  and  panting  to  the  agent 
to  whom  she  had  intrusted  the  necklace,  and  told 
him  what  McBean  had  said  to  her.  The  agent, 
who  saw  that'  he  had  a  frightened  woman  in  his 
power  and  a  valuable  piece  of  property  worth  four 
times  what  he  had  advanced  on  it,  soothed  Eliza- 
beth by  telling  her  that  McBean  had  no  right  to 
demand  the  necklace  from  her,  as  it  was  hers, 
being  partly  her  husband's  wedding  gift  to  her. 
Elizabeth  returned  home,  in  that  hour  of  dark- 
ness, with  but  one  thought  uppermost  in  her 
mind.  Could  she  but  see  Pelham,  he  would  not 
suffer  her  thus  to  be  persecuted.  She  knew  quite 
well  how  he  would  wish  her  to  act,  —  to  pay  off 
[87] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

the  pressing  debts  which  humiliated  her,  and  to 
take  the  small  balance  of  money  left  and  remain  in 
England  until  he  should  return.  This  she  deter- 
mined to  do. 

She  had  not  heard  from  him  either  by  cable  or 
by  letter  since  Darrell's  death,  but  that  was  noth- 
ing. Communication  with  him  would  be  neces- 
sarily slow.  It  might  be  weeks  or  even  months 
before  she  should  hear,  but  she  was  certain  of  what 
the  purport  of  his  letter  would  be,  and  of  what  his 
wishes  already  were.  So,  dismissing  her  servants 
and  turning  the  house  over  to  McBean,  she  went 
to  live  in  a  small  lodging-house,  there  to  await 
Pelham's  return.  She  put  away  from  her  all  the 
thoughts  about  him  as  a  lover,  —  thoughts  which 
would  occasionally  force  themselves  upon  her, 
but  from  which  she  turned  steadfastly, —  and 
thought  of  him  only  as  a  brother  and  friend,  the 
man  most  anxious  to  help  her  in  the  world,  not 
even  excepting  her  own  father.  General  Brandon 
had  written  to  her  urgent  and  affectionate  letters, 
telling  her  that  his  heart  and  hand  and  home  were 
open  to  her  as  the  best  of  daughters  ;  and  Eliza- 
beth, whose  heart  yearned  unceasingly  for  her 
father,  found  in  the  thought  of  once  more  being 
held  in  her  father's  arms  the  heartiest  consolation 
she  could  have  at  that  moment.  But  she  knew 
[88] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

it  was  useless  to  tell  General  Brandon  any  of 
her  money  difficulties.  She  understood  his  strait- 
ened circumstances,  his  mortgaged  house,  and  the 
story  of  his  Egyptian  bonds.  The  only  thing  to 
do  was  to  write  Pelham  frankly  and  fully  every 
circumstance  of  her  affairs,  and  to  await  his  reply 
in  England.  She  did  this,  and  set  herself  to  the 
task  of  waiting. 

It  was  now  autumn,  a  dull  London  autumn,  and 
it  seemed  to  Elizabeth  as  if  she  were  living  in 
a  bad  dream.  Only  the  other  day  she  had  a 
devoted  husband  in  Darrell,  a  friend  in  Pelham 
who  was  all  that  a  friend  could  be  to  a  woman,  a 
home,  servants,  carriages,  jewels,  everything  that 
the  heart  of  woman  could  ask,  with  the  prospect 
of  having  her  father  as  an  honored  guest ;  and 
now  she  was  widowed,  alone,  and  in  deep  poverty. 
She  had  brought  her  expenses  down  to  the  lowest 
possible  penny.  Friendless,  overwhelmed  with 
debts  of  which  she  understood  nothing,  and 
in  the  clutches  of  a  Scotch  attorney  and  a 
jeweller's  agent,  she  felt  a  certainty  of  relief 
when  Pelham  should  write  and  then  should 
come. 

Every  time  the  lodging-house  bell  rang,  she 
thought  it  was  Pelham's  letter,  but  it  did  not 
come.  Instead  came  McBean,  first  hinting  and 
[89] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

then  threatening  legal  proceedings,  especially  in 
regard  to  the  necklace.  This  seemed  to  Elizabeth 
an  undeserved  outrage  and,  reenforced  by  the 
counsel  of  the  jeweller's  agent,  she  said  firmly, 
her  dark  eyes  flashing:  "That  necklace  was  my 
husband's  gift  to  me,  his  last  gift  to  me,  and  part 
of  it  was  his  wedding  gift.  It  is  to  me  the  most 
valuable  thing  on  earth  apart  from  what  it  cost, 
and  it  is  mine  and  I  shall  not  give  it  up.  When 
Major  Pelham  returns,  I  promise  you  he  will  see 
the  matter  as  I  do." 

This  conversation  occurred  in  Elizabeth's  dingy 
room  at  the  lodging-house,  in  an  unfashionable 
part  of  Bayswater.  "  I  judge  Major  Pelham  will 
take  the  same  view  as  I  do,  the  only  possible 
view,"  replied  McBean,  a  wizened,  fox-eyed  man, 
who  loved  a  five-pound  note  better  than  his  own 
soul.  "  I  am  following  out  Major  Pelham's  exact 
directions  when  I  demand  of  you  the  return  of  the 
necklace."  At  these  words  Elizabeth  felt  as  if  a 
knife  had  been  thrust  into  her  heart.  She  under- 
stood McBean  to  mean  that  he  had  received  from 
Pelham  explicit  instructions  in  the  matter  of  the 
necklace,  while  as  a  matter  of  fact  he  had  heard 
nothing  from  Pelham  any  more  than  Elizabeth 
had.  McBean  had  honestly  thought  that  he  was 
acting  exactly  in  Pelham's  interests  and  as  Pelham 
[90] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

would  have  wished  him  to  do,  who  had  in  general 
terms  authorized  him  to  collect  all  debts  due  Pel- 
ham  and  pay  all  authorized  bills. 

McBean  noticed  Elizabeth's  pallor  and  shock 
at  his  words,  and  rightly  judged  that  he  had  hit 
upon  the  means  of  alarming  her.  He  continued 
to  talk  as  if  repeating  Pelham's  words.  Elizabeth 
listened  with  horror.  Was  there  then  no  such 
thing  as  love  and  faith  in  the  world  ?  Could  she 
have  known  Pelham  for  all  these  years,  have  felt 
the  assurance  of  his  devotion,  and  yet  after  all 
not  known  him  ?  No  word  of  McBean's  was  lost 
upon  her,  dazed  as  she  was  ;  but,  feeling  that  she 
was  unable  to  bear  the  scene  longer,  she  got  up 
and  walked  out  of  the  room  like  an  insulted  queen, 
leaving  McBean  still  talking.  Not  by  one  Scotch 
attorney,  nor  in  one  hour,  could  Elizabeth's  belief 
in  Pelham  be  shattered  ;  and  after  the  first  horror 
caused  by  McBean's  words,  Elizabeth  experienced 
a  revulsion  of  feeling.  She  reproached  herself  for 
believing  that  Pelham  could,  for  the  sake  of  a  few 
hundred  pounds,  so  persecute  and  humiliate  her. 
If  she  lost  faith  in  Pelham,  she  would  lose  faith  in 
humanity,  even  in  her  own  father.  McBean  must 
be  lying.  What  he  had  said  to  her  was  incredible. 
It  stiffened  her  resolution  to  remain  in  England  at  1 
any  cost  until  she  could  hear  from  Pelham,  and  of 
[91] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

eventually  hearing  she  could  have  no  doubt.  She 
wrote  him  a  few  lines,  simply  asking  if  he  had  re- 
ceived her  letter  and  recounting  the  circumstances 
under  which  she  remained  in  England  after  Dar- 
rell's  death.  This  letter  she  forwarded  to  the 
War  Office,  and  then  set  herself  to  the  task  of 
waiting  three  months,  or  perhaps  five,  until  she 
could  get  a  reply.  Meanwhile  she  continued  to 
receive  tender  and  affectionate  letters  from  her 
father,  imploring  her  to  return  to  him.  Elizabeth 
replied,  saying  that  she  would  come  to  him  as 
soon  as  the  condition  of  her  affairs  permitted,  and 
merely  adding  that  there  were  certain  things  to 
be  settled  up  in  connection  with  the  estate  which 
required  her  presence  in  England. 

The  dull  autumn  deepened  into  a  winter  of 
fierce  cold,  with  scarcely  a  ray  of  sunshine.  Eliza- 
beth suffered  from  this  as  only  one  can  suffer  who 
has  spent  many  winters  under  an  Indian  sun. 
Even  if  her  pride  had  permitted  her  to  call  for 
assistance  from  their  former  friends,  of  whom  she 
had  scarcely  one  among  the  women,  but  many 
among  the  men,  she  dared  not ;  she  was  afraid 
that  McBean's  story  had  gone  far  and  wide  and 
that  every  action  of  hers  might  be  under  suspi- 
cion. And  then  came  the  crowning  blow.  The 
time  passed  when  she  might  have  returned  the 
[92] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

five  hundred  pounds  advanced  on  the  necklace. 
She  could  not  pay  it,  having  barely  enough  out  of 
the  one  hundred  pounds  left  her  by  Darrell  to 
keep  body  and  soul  together.  And  no  word  came 
from  Pelham. 

The  spring  advanced,  and  the  trees  in  the  Bays- 
water  district  grew  green.  The  time  returned 
when  only  a  year  before  she  had  been  adored  by 
her  husband  and  loved  and  revered  by  the  man 
who  was  now  treating  her  with  insulting  neglect, 
—  for  to  this  belief  Elizabeth  had  at  last  been 
forced.  She  spent  many  nights  walking  up  and 
down  her  narrow  room  wringing  her  hands  at  the 
thought  of  the  last  letter  she  had  written  Pelham. 
The  first  she  had  no  regrets  for.  It  had  been 
sent  under  the  impression  that  Pelham  was  not 
only  a  sincere  man  but  a  gentleman  ;  for  certainly, 
knowing  as  he  did  every  circumstance  of  Eliza- 
beth's life  and  condition,  it  was  ungentlemanlike 
of  him  to  seize  everything  on  which  the  law  per- 
mitted him  to  lay  his  hands  and  to  leave  her  des- 
titute, alone,  and  a  stranger.  She  felt  that  she 
could  no  longer  doubt  McBean's  word,  of  which 
nothing  could  have  convinced  her  short  of  Pel- 
ham's  own  conduct.  Hope  died  hard  within  her, 
and  she  lingered  in  London  during  the  spring  and 
late  summer  ;  but  as  autumn  came  on  she  realized 
[93] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

there  was  but  one  refuge  left  her,  her   father's 
roof  in  Washington. 

She  dared  not  let  her  intention  of  leaving  Lon- 
don be  known,  for  fear  she  might  be  stopped  and  a 
scandal  might  ensue.  She  raised  money  enough 
to  take  a  second-class  passage  on  a  cheap  steamer, 
and  on  a  gloomy  day  in  the  last  part  of  September 
she  started  upon  her  homeward  journey.  She  had 
endured  grief,  anxiety,  and  privations,  and  espe- 
cially that  last  overwhelming  blow,  the  admission 
of  Pelham's  faithlessness.  It  had  transformed 
her  delicate  and  seductive  beauty,  but  strangely 
enough  it  had  not  rendered  her  less  delicately 
seductive.  The  pathos  of  her  eyes,  the  sadness  of 
her  smile,  the  droop  of  her  beautiful  mouth,  her 
mourning  attire,  refined  and  even  elegant,  in  spite 
of  her  poverty,  marked  her  out.  She  was  not  less 
beautiful  than  in  her  days  of  joy,  and  was  far 
more  interesting. 


[94] 


Chapter  Seven 

THE  return  of  a  woman  once  married  to  a  home 
under  her  father's  roof  is  always  a  tragic  episode. 
It  implies  death  or  disaster,  and  means  the  giving 
up  of  the  prestige  and  independence  a  woman  is 
supposed  to  attain  by  marriage.  It  may  be  the 
most  sordid  or  the  most  dignified  of  tragedies 
that  brings  her  back.  Nevertheless  it  is  a  trag- 
edy, and  almost  invariably  has  its  sordid  aspects, 
because  it  is  oftenest  poverty,  to  the  accompani- 
ment of  divorce  or  death,  which  leads  her,  wounded 
and  smarting  and  hungering,  to  that  last  remain- 
ing refuge,  her  father's  house. 

To  Elizabeth  Darrell,  on  the  gloomy  October 
day  when  she  reached  Washington  from  England, 
it  seemed  as  if  all  the  cruel  reasons  which  ever 
brought  a  woman  to  such  a  pass  existed  in  her 
case.  She  pondered  over  all  the  sources  of  her  un- 
happiness  with  that  curious  passion  for  the  analy- 
sis of  their  own  misfortunes  which  is  peculiar  to 
women  and  poets.  Her  general  and  specific  quar- 
rel against  fate  had  not  been  absent  for  a  moment 
from  her  memory  since  she  first  undertook  that 
[95] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

long  journey  overseas.  As  every  hour  brought 
her  nearer  to  her  old  home,  the  pain  and  the  ap- 
prehension of  pain  increased.  One  mitigation 
she  had  hoped  for,  the  sight  of  her  father's  kind, 
handsome  old  face  as  soon  as  she  reached  Wash- 
ington; his  courtly  placing  of  his  hand  within  her 
own;  his  valiant  pretence  that  her  home-coming 
was  a  happy  one.  But  her  despatch  on  leaving 
the  steamer  had  not  arrived  in  time,  and  when  she 
reached  the  station  there  was  no  one  to  meet  her. 
It  was  a  cool,  damp  autumn  afternoon ;  a  fine 
rain  was  falling  and  a  general  air  of  misery 
brooded  over  everything.  With  that  dazed  in- 
telligence about  places  which  were  once  well 
known  but  are  now  half  forgotten,  Elizabeth 
watched  the  streets  and  squares  through  which 
her  cab  rolled.  She  was  forced  to  observe  that 
Washington  had  become  a  fine  city  in  the  ten 
years  since  she  had  seen  it.  But  as  she  was 
accustomed  to  the  crowded  thoroughfares  of  for- 
eign cities,  the  quiet  streets  seemed  to  her  dreary 
and  deserted  beyond  expression.  Was  everybody 
dead  in  those  silent,  handsome  houses  ?  The 
cab  stopped  at  last  before  the  tall,  plain  house, 
quite  far  out  in  the  northwest,  in  which  Elizabeth 
had  passed  the  beautiful  though  happy-go-lucky 
days  of  her  girlhood.  The  finer  residences  were 
[96] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

crowding  the  poor  house  in  an  unseemly  manner. 
Elizabeth  remembered  it  as  surrounded  by  vacant 
lots,  tenanted  only  by  real  estate  agents'  signs. 
Now  the  region  was  well  and  handsomely  built  up. 
The  house,  commonplace  and  shabby,  looked  still 
more  commonplace  and  shabby  from  its  fashion- 
able surroundings.  It  was  near  the  end  of  the 
square,  where  the  smaller  street  debouched  into  a 
splendid  avenue.  On  the  corner  was  a  fine  white 
stone  house,  with  an  entrance  on  the  avenue  and  a 
porte-cochere  on  the  side  street. 

It  made  Elizabeth  Darrell  feel  more  of  a  for- 
lorn stranger  than  ever  when  she  saw  the  new 
luxury  that  surrounded  her  father's  poor  old 
house.  She  descended  from  the  cab  and  with  a 
faltering  hand  rang  the  bell.  Her  ring  was 
answered  by  a  negro  woman,  stout,  elderly,  and 
decent,  but  far  removed  from  the  smart  English 
maids  and  native  Indian  servants  to  whom  Eliza- 
beth had  been  long  accustomed.  However,  so 
strong  is  early  habitude  that  the  sight  of  this 
honest  black  face  gave  Elizabeth  the  first  senti- 
ment of  home  she  had  felt  since  her  widowhood. 
In  that  black  face  was  a  doglike  softness  and 
kindness,  and  in  the  voice  a  compassionate  yet 
deprecatory  quality,  which  is  not  heard  often  in 
any  but  an  African  voice. 
[97] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"You  is  Mis'  'Lisbeth,"  she  said  kindly,  hold- 
ing the  door  wide.  "De  Gin'l,  he  ear'n  lookin' 
fer  you  'twell  to-morrer  —  but  come  right  in 
heah." 

There  were  signs  of  preparation  within,  but  the 
room  designed  for  Elizabeth  —  the  best  bedroom 
in  the  house  —  was  not  ready.  Serena  —  for  so 
she  informed  Elizabeth  was  her  name  —  was  full 
of  humble,  soft  apologies. 

"  De  Gin'l  will  be  mighty  worried  dat  he  war'n 
home  when  you  come ;  he  was  countin'  on  meckin' 
you  mighty  comfortable." 

To  which  Elizabeth,  her  spirit  dying  within  her 
at  the  aspect  of  things,  answered:  "Is  not  the 
front  bedroom  in  the  third  story  furnished?  Per- 
haps I  could  go  there." 

Serena  eagerly  led  the  way.  It  was  the  room 
which  had  been  Elizabeth's  ten  years  ago.  She 
had  chosen  it  because  General  Brandon  was  al- 
ways entertaining  some  of  his  relations,  and  had 
the  old-time  idea  that  hospitality  to  a  guest  meant 
the  upsetting  of  all  family  arrangements ;  so 
Elizabeth  had  chosen  this  upper  room  for  her 
own,  secure  in  not  being  turned  out  of  it  to 
accommodate  some  ex-Confederate  general,  judge, 
or  other  person  distinguished  in  "  our  great  Civil 
War,"  as  General  Brandon  always  spoke  of  it. 
[98] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

The  windows  had  a  good  outlook  upon  the  blue 
Potomac  and  on  the  misty  line  of  the  Virginia 
hills  far  beyond.  Otherwise  it  had  not  a  single 
recommendation. 

Serena,  her  heart  in  her  beady  black  eyes,  was 
all  sympathy  and  attention.  She  brought  tea, 
called  Elizabeth  "  honey,"  and  talked  in  her  slow 
and  soothing  voice  of  "  de  Gin'l."  Evidently  Gen- 
eral Brandon  was  a  hero  to  his  maid-of-all-work. 

At  last  Serena  went  out,  and  Elizabeth  was 
alone.  She  sat  down  before  the  little  dressing- 
table  and  removed  her  widow's  bonnet  and  veil. 
And  remembering  that  when  she  had  last  seen 
herself  in  that  mirror  she  had  been  a  bride  and 
in  the  glory  of  her  youth,  she  could  not  but 
study  the  changes  in  herself.  She  had  then  been 
beautiful,  in  a  vivid,  irregular  manner,  and  ought 
to  have  been  so  still,  as  she  was  but  little  past  her 
thirtieth  birthday.  But  she  saw  plainly  that  she 
was  haggard,  that  she  was  sallow,  that  she  was 
painfully  thin.  She  looked  at  her  own  reflection 
with  self-pity,  thinking,  "  I  should  be  handsome 
still  if  I  had  but  some  flesh  and  color,  and  if  life 
were  not  so  hard  and  disappointing."  She  sat  a 
long  while,  leaning  her  head  on  her  hand,  and  see- 
ing in  the  mirror,  not  her  own  reflection,  but  the 
hapless  story  of  her  own  life  passing  before  her. 
[99] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

Then,  recalling  herself,  like  a  person  waking  from 
a  dream,  she  went  to  the  window  and  looked  out 
upon  the  quiet  street. 

It  was  already  dusk,  and  the  mist  of  the  late 
autumn  afternoon  made  mysterious  shadows, 
through  which  the  houses  loomed  large  and 
near.  Directly  before  her  towered  the  great 
stone  house,  and  just  above  the  porte-cochere 
was  a  large,  square  window,  with  delicate  lace 
draperies.  It  was  quite  dark  enough  for  the 
wood  fire,  sparkling  in  the  white-tiled  fireplace, 
to  show  the  interior  of  the  room,  which  was 
evidently  a  boudoir  of  the  most  beautiful  and 
luxurious  character.  Elizabeth  was  keen  of  sight, 
and  she  could  not  refrain  from  looking  into  so 
charming  a  room  placed  under  her  eyes.  The 
walls  were  panelled  with  flowered  silk ;  the  fur- 
niture was  of  gold  and  spindle-legged ;  there  was 
a  delicious  little  sofa  drawn  up  to  the  fire ;  every- 
thing spoke  of  wealth  informed  by  taste. 

In  a  minute  more  the  mistress  of  this  delightful 
room  entered  —  a  graceful,  girlish  figure,  envel- 
oped in  a  long,  full  cloak  of  a  shimmering,  sil- 
very satin  and  wearing  a  flower-decked  white 
hat.  She  threw  aside  her  cloak  and  sat  down 
for  a  moment  on  the  sofa  before  the  fire.  Her 
air  was  not  that  of  happy  abandon,  but  rather 
[100] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

of  thoughtfulness,  even  of  sadness.  She  was  not 
beautiful,  but  Elizabeth,  with  a  woman's  ready 
appraisement  of  another  woman's  charms,  saw  at 
a  glance  that  this  girl's  appearance  was  interest- 
ing. Her  features  were  delicate,  but  her  face 
was  too  pale  for  beauty ;  her  thin-lipped  mouth 
was  large,  though  redeemed  by  perfect  teeth ;  but 
her  air,  her  figure,  her  walk,  were  full  of  grace 
and  elegance.  She  remained  only  a  few  minutes 
in  the  room,  then  passed  into  the  inner  room  and 
closed  the  door  after  her.  And  in  a  moment  a 
maid  came  in  and  drew  the  silk  curtains,  leaving 
only  a  rosy  glow  from  the  window  instead  of  a 
captivating  picture. 

Elizabeth,  distracted  for  only  a  little  while  from 
her  own  thoughts,  went  back  to  the  sad  employ- 
ment of  casting  up  her  sorrows  and  disappoint- 
ments. She  remembered  her  childhood  on  the 
old  Virginia  plantation  with  her  father's  mother. 
The  war  was  not  many  years  past  then,  and  over 
all  her  life  hung  that  great  black  shadow  of  chaos 
following  defeat,  the  wreck  of  fortune,  the  up- 
heaval of  society,  the  helplessness,  the  despair  of 
millions  of  people,  with  their  whole  social  fabric 
a  wreck,  all  values  destroyed,  everything  dis- 
rupted and  out  of  joint.  She  had  realized  later 
on  how  General  Brandon  had  stinted  himself  for 
[101] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

the  little  dark-eyed  daughter  on  the  Virginia 
plantation,  and  his  magnanimous  investment  of 
his  savings  in  Egyptian  bonds,  which  made  Eliza- 
beth smile  faintly  in  the  midst  of  her  wretched- 
ness. In  those  years  of  separation  and  of  learning 
from  the  great,  wide-open  book  of  life,  Eliza- 
beth had  come  to  understand  her  father  better 
than  during  that  part  of  her  life  passed  with 
him. 

The  General  was  a  West  Point  graduate,  and 
had  been  the  best-loved  man  in  his  class,  in  spite 
of  having  been  also  the  handsomest  and  one  of 
the  dullest.  So  when  his  old  classmates  in  the 
army  had  heard  of  his  straits,  they  all  agreed  that 
"something  must  be  done  for  Dick  Brandon." 
Although  a  West  Point  man,  he  was  not  a  scien- 
tific man ;  he  was  too  handsome  to  know  much. 
His  old  friends  did  the  best  they  could  for  him  by 
getting  him  a  clerkship  in  Washington ;  and  Gen- 
eral Brandon,  who  had  commanded  a  brigade  of 
three  thousand  fighting  men,  during  four  years 
of  unremitting  warfare,  found  himself  subject  to  a 
chief  of  division  young  enough  to  be  his  son  and 
as  ignorant  as  men  are  made. 

The  old  soldier  had  borne  his  lot  with  a  fine 
patience  and  a  sweet  calmness  that  placed  him  well 
up  in  the  ranks  of  unrecorded  heroes.  He  had  a 
[102] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

superb  courage,  a  charming  temper  ;  lie  remained 
incurably  handsome,  and  likewise  he  was  and 
always  remained  incurably  simple  in  every  way. 
Anybody  could  hoodwink  him,  and  most  people  did. 
When  he  had  come  to  Washington,  bringing  with 
him  his  daughter  Elizabeth,  then  eighteen,  and 
some  remnant  of  property  coming  to  him,  he 
bought  the  shabby  house.  Or,  rather,  he  thought 
he  bought  it,  for  it  had  a  heavy  mortgage  on  it, 
which  General  Brandon  never  had  the  least  ex- 
pectation of  lifting  —  mortgages  being  as  natural 
to  Virginians  as  sparks  flying  upward. 

Washington  in  those  days  was  a  simple,  merry 
place,  with  a  delightful  and  unique  society  based 
upon  official  rank,  and  a  few  old  resident  families, 
who  were  in  society  when  Abigail  Adams  had  the 
clothes  dried  in  the  East  Room  of  the  White 
House.  Elizabeth  remembered  that  she  had  been 
a  great  belle  with  gay  young  army  and  navy  men 
and  sprigs  of  diplomats  and  was  not  unhappy, 
although  she  had  felt  at  every  turn  the  prick  of 
poverty.  She  had  been  ashamed  to  complain, 
however,  in  the  presence  of  General  Brandon's 
cheerful  submission.  He  had  his  compensations, 
though,  —  chiefly  his  evening  visits  to  and  from 
other  grizzled  officers  of  both  sides,  when  they  sat 
and  talked  gravely  and  tensely  of  issues  as  dead 
[103]  ' 


MRS.  DARRELL 

as  Julius  Caesar,  and  solemnly  discussed  what 
might  have  been,  to  an  accompaniment  of  whiskey 
and  cigars.  General  Brandon's  whiskey  and  cigars 
were  poor  —  he  smoked  a  pipe  himself,  declaring 
he  preferred  it.  But  no  army  man  of  any  rank 
ever  animadverted  on  the  General's  whiskey  or 
cigars ;  and,  although  both  were  evilly  cheap, 
they  drank  and  smoked  cheerfully,  with  a  relish 
for  the  man  if  not  for  his  entertainment. 

General  Brandon  had  no  knowledge  of  the 
words  "getting  on  in  society,"  or  anything  like 
them.  He  belonged  to  that  sturdy  oligarchy 
in  Virginia  which,  whatever  might  be  its  short- 
comings, knew  nothing  of  snobs  or  snobbery, 
because  everybody  was  just  as  good  as  everybody 
else.  But  his  social  career  had  been  such  that 
the  newly  rich  might  have  asked  him  his  patent 
for  knowing  everybody  worth  knowing.  He  was 
asked  everywhere  in  those  days,  which  he  took  as 
a  matter  of  course,  just  as,  during  his  occasional 
brief  sojourns  in  England  during  his  Egyptian 
days,  he  was  asked  everywhere  and  took  it  as  a 
matter  of  course.  Your  true  Virginian  has  many 
faults  and  some  vices,  but  he  is  socially  the  wisest 
person  in  the  world  because  he  is  the  simplest. 
Nobody  can  patronize  him,  nobody  can  snub  him. 
He  takes  the  notice  of  royalty  with  the  same 
[104] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

unconscious  ease  that  he  does  the  rapturous  salu- 
tation of  a  negro  barber  who  belonged  to  him 
"  bef o' de  war,  sir,"  —  always  polite,  considerate, 
mindful  of  the  small,  sweet  courtesies  of  life. 

There  is  but  one  section  of  society  with  which  he 
cannot  get  on.  This  is  the  newly  rich  smart  set, 
fresh  from  the  forge,  the  shop,  the  mine,  the  liquor 
saloon  —  that  rapid  fungus  which  has  grown  up 
in  America  during  the  last  forty  years,  of  which  it 
has  been  said  that  no  parallel  exists  to  its  license 
and  irresponsibility,  unless  one  goes  back  to  the 
later  Roman  and  Byzantine  emperors.  This  class 
is  free  with  a  freedom  that  is  staggering  to  con- 
template ;  free  from  any  traditions  of  the  past, 
any  responsibility  in  the  present,  any  account- 
ability to  the  future  ;  free  to  marry,  to  be 
divorced,  to  live  where  it  likes,  to  change  its  resi- 
dence every  week  in  the  year  ;  free  from  the  care 
of  the  few  children  they  have,  free  from  taxes  as 
far  as  rank  perjury  goes,  and  free  to  command  all 
the  science  of  the  world  to  keep  death  at  bay  as 
long  as  possible.  The  advent  of  this  class  any- 
where changes  the  aspect  of  things,  and  therefore 
when  it  moved  in  columns  upon  Washington,  the 
people  of  General  Brandon's  class  and  Elizabeth's 
time  became  "Cave-dwellers,"  and  the  General 
was  asked  "  nowhere,"  —  that  is,  he  was  still  asked, 
[105] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

but  it  was  "nowhere."  The  General,  however,  did 
not  know  this  at  the  time,  or  ever  afterwards. 

Elizabeth  sat  at  the  window  and,  looking  out 
upon  the  murky  evening,  continued  that  sad 
review  of  her  life. 

There  is  a  French  school  of  moralists  which  says 
that  a  man  may  love  two  women  at  once.  Eliza- 
beth Darrell  had  certainly  loved  two  men  at  once. 
Pelham  was  always  and  forever  the  man  she 
would  have  married,  but  Darrell's  honest  love  was 
not  thrown  away  on  her.  She  mourned  him  as  she 
had  mourned  for  her  child,  neither  one  infringing 
in  the  least  on  Pelham's  place  in  her  heart.  She 
had  been  a  wife  and  a  mother,  she  had  suffered  a 
real  arid  lasting  passion  for  a  man  not  her  husband, 
but  she  had  not  transgressed  a  hair's-breadth;  she 
had  experienced  both  poverty  and  wealth,  she  had 
known  and  felt  more  in  her  thirty  years  than  most 
women  do  in  a  lifetime  ;  and  yet  it  seemed  to  her 
as  if  she  had  only  turned  over,  without  the  oppor- 
tunity to  read  and  study,  those  glowing  pages  in 
the  book  of  a  woman's  life  —  the  love  of  a  man, 
the  love  of  a  child,  the  beauty  of  the  world.  Now 
all  was  over  —  even  Pelham's  love  and  tender  con- 
sideration, which  had  been  hers  for  so  long  that 
she  scarcely  recognized  the  face  of  life  without 
them.  Nothing  was  left  for  her  except  her  father, 
[106] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

the  best  of   men  and  fathers  ;  but  this  was  not 
enough  for  a  nature  like  Elizabeth  Darrell's. 

While  these  thoughts  were  passing  through 
Elizabeth's  mind,  darkness  had  fallen.  Lights 
were  twinkling  everywhere.  The  great  house 
opposite  radiated  brightness  from  many  windows, 
and  it  occurred  to  Elizabeth,  as  to  every  sorrow- 
ful and  disappointed  person,  that  every  one  in 
that  luxurious  and  brilliant  home  must  be  happy. 
Probably  the  girl  of  the  boudoir,  whose  attitude 
had  expressed  such  dejection,  was  grieving  over 
some  trifle  like  a  disappointment  in  a  dance  or 
the  failure  of  some  plan  of  pleasure.  Then  she 
heard  the  street  door  open  and  a  step  which  she 
recognized  as  her  father's,  and  she  had  the  first 
sensation  of  gladness  she  had  felt  for  so  long  that 
she  had  almost  forgotten  what  gladness  was. 

General  Brandon,  standing  under  the  flaring 
gas-jet  in  the  narrow  hall,  saw  the  black  figure 
flying  down  the  stairs  towards  him.  He  stopped, 
trembling  with  emotion;  he  who  had  without  a 
tremor  faced  death  a  hundred  times  was  shaken 
at  the  sight  of  his  child  in  her  mourning  gar- 
ments. The  next  minute  her  head  was  on  his 
shoulder  and  he  was  patting  it,  saying,  "  My  child, 
—  my  ever  dear  child,  —  welcome  at  all  times, 
more  welcome  in  your  sorrow." 
[10T] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Elizabeth  looked  up,  smiling  and  weeping.  It 
was  the  first  time  since  her  husband's  death  that 
she  had  not  seemed  in  everybody's  way.  Gen- 
eral Brandon  gazed  at  her,  at  the  changes  that 
ten  years  had  made,  at  the  marks  of  the  recent 
shipwreck  of  her  hopes  and  joys,  at  the  pallor 
and  thinness  that  brooding  over  her  misfortunes 
had  brought  upon  her;  and  then  he  said,  with  a 
tremulous  smile  and  with  tears  in  his  honest 
eyes,  "  It  is  doubly  sweet  to  have  you  back 
unchanged." 

He  led  her  into  the  dingy,  well-remembered 
drawing-room,  and  they  sat  hand  in  hand  on  the 
sofa,  talking,  Elizabeth  dwelling  upon  her  hus- 
band's goodness  to  her,  and  mentioning  none  of 
her  woes  and  perplexities  in  that  first  hour  of 
meeting.  Then  Serena  announced  dinner,  and 
General  Brandon,  with  the  air  of  escorting  a 
queen  regent,  placed  his  daughter  at  the  head  of 
the  table.  "And  never,  since  the  day  of  your 
marriage,  my  love,  have  I  ever  sat  down  to  this 
table  without  remembering  you  and  wishing  that 
you  were  seated  at  this  place,"  he  said. 

To  Elizabeth  it  seemed  that  the  place  she  had 

in  that  dull  dining  room  was  the  only  spot  she 

had   had  any  right  to,  except    under  sufferance, 

since  that  June  morning,  now  nearly  a  year  and 

[108] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

a  half  past,  when  her  husband  had  died.  Not 
only  was  General  Brandon  glad  to  see  her,  but 
Serena  seemed  equally  so.  Serena  was  a  dis- 
tinct acquisition  to  Elizabeth.  When  the  dinner 
was  fairly  begun  the  General  produced  a  bottle 
of  that  doubtful  champagne  which  had  been 
served  at  Elizabeth's  wedding.  "  Saved  to  cele- 
brate your  return,  my  dearest,"  he  said.  Eliza- 
beth could  scarcely  drink  it  for  the  tears  that 
threatened  to  overflow. 

The  dining  room  was  just  as  it  had  been  ten 
years  ago,  only  duller  and  dingier  ;  but  it  was 
scrupulously  neat.  General  Brandon's  joy  at 
seeing  her  was  not  troubled  by  any  apprehen- 
sions as  to  the  shortcomings  of  his  household. 
All  during  dinner  his  spirits  did  not  flag,  and 
insensibly  Elizabeth's  turbulent  heart  grew  more 
composed.  Her  father  asked  her  minute  par- 
ticulars concerning  her  married  life,  and  when 
Elizabeth  told  of  Darrell's  unvarying  goodness 
to  her,  a  singular  look  of  relief  came  into  her 
father's  face.  He  had  always  had  a  dim  appre- 
hension that  Elizabeth  was  not  rightly  mated  with 
Darrell  —  which  was  true.  He  delicately  refrained 
from  asking  any  questions  about  her  means,  but 
Elizabeth  told  him  frankly  that  the  sole  provi- 
sion available  for  her,  after  Pelham  inherited  the 
[109] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

property,  was  about  one  hundred  pounds  a  year, 
contingent  on  her  remaining  a  widow. 

"  Why,  that  is  opulence  !  "  said  General  Bran- 
don, with  the  ideas  of  opulence  of  an  ex- 
Confederate  officer  in  a  government  clerkship. 
"  That  will  suffice  amply  for  your  needs  ;  and 
whatever  I  can  supply,  my  dear,  is  yours,  and  my 
house  and  all  in  it  are  at  your  complete  disposal." 

Elizabeth  rose  and  went  over  to  him  and  kissed 
him.  After  all,  there  was  some  goodness  left  in 
the  world.  She  did  not  once  mention  Pelham's 
name;  but  presently  her  father  asked:  "And  in 
your  trouble,  where  was  Major  Pelham,  of  whom 
you  so  often  wrote  me  in  years  past,  as  being 
most  kind  and  brotherly  to  you  ?  As  he  was  the 
next  heir,  he  owed  you  much  consideration." 

Elizabeth,  by  an  effort,  spoke  calmly.  "  He  had 
just  started  for  West  Africa  when  Jack  died.  I 
have  heard  nothing  from  him,  but  I  know  through 
his  solicitor  —  a  very  rude  person  —  that  Major 
Pelham  has  not  been  to  England." 

"  And  Major  Pelham  has  not  even  written  you 
a  letter  of  condolence  ?  " 

"No." 

"Most  strange.  And  his  solicitor  is  in  com- 
munication with  him  ?  " 

"Yes."  Elizabeth  was  surprised  at  the  steadi- 
[110] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

ness  of  her  voice  in  answering  these  questions, 
but  General  Brandon  noticed  for  the  first  time  a 
tremor  in  her  tones. 

"  I  cannot  understand  such  conduct,  and  par- 
ticularly as  I  retain  a  most  agreeable  recollection 
of  Major  Pelham,  —  Captain  Pelham  he  was  at 
the  time  of  your  marriage." 

Then,  to  Elizabeth's  relief,  her  father  left  off 
speaking  of  Pelham  and  gave  her  a  minute 
account  of  all  her  Virginia  relations  and  their 
doings  during  the  last  ten  years.  Elizabeth 
listened,  her  head  on  her  hand,  the  light  from  the 
flaring  chandelier  falling  upon  her  rich  hair,  one 
of  her  beauties  left  unimpaired.  She  appeared  to 
be  strictly  attentive,  but  in  truth  she  scarcely 
heard  one  word  of  what  her  father,  in  his  soft, 
well-bred  voice,  was  saying.  Her  mind  was  go- 
ing over,  as  it  had  done  many  hundreds  of  times, 
the  strange  problem  about  Pelham.  Was  it 
possible  that  a  mere  matter  of  money  and  an 
estate  had  so  changed  him  that  he  could  forget 
her,  after  nine  years  of  devotion  —  silent,  it  is 
true,  but  none  the  less  eloquent?  Or  was  it,  after 
all,  mere  lip  service  he  had  paid  her  ?  This  she 
could  not  quite  believe,  and  so  was  ever  tormented 
between  longing  and  regret  on  one  hand,  and  a 
silent  but  furious  resentment  on  the  other.  Pel- 
[111] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

ham  at  least  was  a  gentleman,  and  yet  he  had  not 
observed  any  sentiment  of  courtesy  or  attention 
to  her  when  he  was  under  every  obligation  to  do 
so.  He  must  know  what  sort  of  man  Mr.  McBean 
was,  and  yet  he  had  left  her  completely  in  the 
solicitor's  power.  And  the  remembrance  of 
McBean  brought  back  the  recollection  of  the 
money  she  owed  on  the  necklace  of  which  McBean 
had  tried  to  rob  her.  She  went  over  the  whole 
weary  story  again,  that  strange,  contradictory 
story  of  Pelham's  agent,  technically  and  actually 
— and  she  was  glad  to  take  refuge  from  her  per- 
plexing and  contradictory  thoughts  by  paying 
more  heed  to  what  her  father  was  saying.  He 
had  got  through  with  a  part  of  his  relations,  and 
with  a  view  to  interesting  Elizabeth  in  her  future 
home  was  telling  her  something  of  those  friends 
and  acquaintances  left  in  Washington. 

"  You  remember  Sara  Luttrell,  my  dear  ? " 
asked  General  Brandon,  with  a  smile.  "  Well, 
she  is  the  same  Sara  Luttrell  I  danced  with  forty- 
five  years  ago  at  West  Point.  Nobody  knew  her 
age  then  and  nobody  knows  it  now  —  and  time 
seems  to  have  passed  her  by.  She  still  lives  in 
her  fine  old  house,  gives  two  dinners  a  week  her- 
self and  goes  out  to  dine  the  remaining  five  even- 
ings, and  nobody  dares  cross  her  except  her 
[112] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

nephew  —  her  husband's  nephew,  I  should  say  — 
Richard  Baskerville." 

"I  remember  Mr.  Baskerville  perfectly.  He 
was  always  very  kind  to  me,  and  so  was  Mrs. 
Luttrell." 

"  Richard  Baskerville,  my  dear,  is  a  very  re- 
markable man.  He  has  developed  a  comfortable 
fortune  of  his  own,  and  will  inherit  every  stiver 
of  Sara  Luttrell's  money.  But  he  works  hard  at 
his  profession  of  the  law  and  has  made  a  name  for 
himself.  His  fortune  and  position  make  it  possi- 
ble for  him  to  devote  himself  to  civics,  and  he  is 
frequently  engaged  in  the  investigations  of  vio- 
lations of  the  civil  service  law  and  in  matters 
coming  before  Congress  in  which  there  is  reason 
to  suspect  fraud.  Just  now  he  is  in  the  thick  of 
a  fight  with  my  neighbor  in  the  fine  house  across 
the  way,  Senator  Clavering,  who  is  under  fire  at 
the  present  time  before  a  senatorial  committee 
concerning  some  alleged  gigantic  frauds  with  rail- 
way land  grants  in  the  Far  West.  I  knew  Clav- 
ering well  before  the  war,  when  I  was  a  captain 
of  infantry  and  he  was  a  sutler,  —  post-traders 
they  now  call  themselves,  and  I  understand  that 
at  army  posts  their  daughters  aspire  to  be  visited 
by  the  young  officers." 

So  the  big,  beautiful  house  belonged  to  this  man 
[113] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Clavering.  Elizabeth  felt  an  immediate  and 
strange  interest  on  hearing  about  the  people  who 
lived  in  that  charming  abode.  She  wondered 
why  she  should  wish  to  hear  more  of  these  people 
whose  names  she  had  heard  only  at  that  moment, 
but  nevertheless  she  did.  Nothing  pleased  Gen- 
eral Brandon  so  much  as  to  talk  of  things  which 
happened  before  the  war,  except  to  talk  about 
those  which  happened  during  the  war. 

"  Clavering,  however,  was  not  the  man  to  re- 
main a  sutler  very  long.  He  made  money  at  the 
business  —  they  all  do  ;  Napoleon  Bonaparte  was 
the  only  man  who  knew  how  to  treat  a  man 
supplying  soldiers.  In  the  days  when  I  knew 
Clavering,  a  sutler  was  a  sutler ;  nevertheless, 
Clavering  was  such  a  remarkable  man  that  no  one 
who  knew  him  could  forget  him.  I  used  often  to 
talk  with  him,  and  he  professed  to  be  under  some 
obligations  to  me  for  certain  small  acts  of  kind- 
ness. After  giving  up  the  post-tradership  for 
something  better,  I  heard  of  him  at  intervals.  I 
even  saw  him  once  here  in  Washington  just  before 
your  marriage  —  sometimes  he  was  up  and  some- 
times he  was  down.  Then  he  went  into  mining, 
prospecting,  and  land  buying  on  a  great  scale  and 
developed  what  I  had  always  observed  in  him,  a 
remarkable  capacity  for  men  and  affairs.  Five 
[114] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

years  ago  he  came  to  the  Senate,  built  this  splen- 
did house  you  saw  on  the  corner,  and  set  up  for  a 
statesman  and  a  gentleman.  Ha,  ha!  I  must  say, 
however,  that  he  had  some  qualifications  for  both. 
His  family  are  conspicuous  socially.  He  has  three 
daughters  and  a  deadly  pious  son,  a  confirmed 
ritualist  like  most  of  those  common  people.  He 
goes  to  St.  Bartholomew's  Chapel,  where  I  attend 
service  still,  as  I  did  when  I  had  the  joy  of  having 
you  with  me,  my  child." 

The  General  was  a  strict  churchman,  and  it  was 
no  small  recommendation  that  Clavering  had  a 
son  who  was  also  a  strict  churchman. 

"  And  one  of  Clavering's  daughters  —  Miss 
Anne  Clavering  —  is  very  much  admired  and  re- 
spected. Another  of  his  daughters  has  had  the 
misfortune  to  be  divorced.  His  wife  is  little  seen 
in  society.  She  was  a  plain  but  most  excellent 
woman  when  I  knew  her  thirty  years  ago.  This 
investigation  of  which  Richard  Baskerville  is  one 
of  the  leading  spirits  must  be  extremely  painful 
to  the  ladies  of  Clavering's  family." 

General  Brandon  prattled  on  until  ten  o'clock 
came,  when  he  always  went  to  his  modest  club 
for  an  hour.  He  escorted  Elizabeth  to  her  door 
and  said  good  night,  giving  her  a  blessing  like  the 
patriarchs'  of  old. 

[115] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

As  soon  as  she  was  alone  Elizabeth  put  out  the 
gas  and,  opening  the  window,  looked  out  upon 
the  night.  It  was  a  damp  and  chilly  night,  with 
a  few  vagrant  stars  in  the  sky  and  a  sickly  moon 
setting.  The  vast  mass  of  foliage  which  makes 
Washington  a  great  park  still  hung  upon  the 
trees,  but  was  yellowing  and  decaying.  There 
were  not  many  lights  in  the  houses  round  about, 
except  in  the  Clavering  mansion,  for  it  was  not 
yet  the  full  season  in  Washington.  But  while 
Elizabeth  was  looking  a  carriage  drove  under  the 
Clavering  porte-cochere,  an  alert  footman  opened 
the  huge  street  door  and  spread  a  carpet  down 
the  steps.  In  a  moment  the  girl  Elizabeth  had 
seen  in  the  boudoir  came  out  in  an  evening  cos- 
tume, with  a  white  silk  mantle  enveloping  her. 
Elizabeth  had  a  perfectly  clear  view  of  her  as  she 
passed  down  the  steps  under  a  great  swinging 
lantern.  She  was  not  beautiful,  but  interesting, 
graceful,  and  with  an  air  of  perfect  breeding. 
After  her  came  one  of  the  handsomest  men  Eliza- 
beth had  ever  seen.  He  was  well  past  middle 
age,  but  his  figure  was  noble,  his  features  without 
line  or  wrinkle,  his  complexion  ruddy  with  health, 
and  his  close-cropped  iron-gray  hair  abundant. 
Elizabeth  divined  that  it  was  Clavering,  and  what 
was  more,  the  instant  her  eyes  rested  upon  him 
[116] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

she  knew  that  she  had  seen  him  before  ;  that  she 
had  seen  him  at  some  crisis  in  her  life  and  seen 
him  so  as  never  to  have  forgotten  him.  She  drew 
back  from  the  window  when  the  shock  of  surprise 
struck  her.  She  could  not  recall  at  what  particu- 
lar crisis  her  eyes  and  this  man's  had  met,  except 
that  it  was  long  ago.  She  had  not  once  during 
all  those  intervening  years  recalled  him,  but  now 
his  face  was  as  instantly  recognized  by  her  as  had 
been  her  own  father's.  It  was  as  if,  sailing  upon 
the  ocean,  she  had  passed  a  beacon  light  upon  a 
headland,  which  she  remembered  perfectly  having 
seen  in  a  remote  past,  but  of  which  nothing  was 
known  to  her  except  the  fact  that  she  had  once 
seen  it  and  the  sight  of  it  was  at  a  crucial  point 
in  her  life.  The  girl  had  by  no  means  the  beauty 
of  the  man,  but  there  was  sufficient  likeness  to 
indicate  that  they  were  father  and  daughter. 

Elizabeth  watched  them  with  singular  interest 
as  the  carriage  rolled  off.  She  had  never  expected 
to  feel  an  interest  in  anything  again,  and  that 
which  she  felt  in  these  strange  people  seemed 
ominous.  For  Elizabeth,  being  a  woman,  was 
superstitious,  and  where  before  had  she  seen  the 
face  and  figure  of  that  man  ? 


[117] 


Chapter  Eight 

SARA  LDTTRELL,  as  General  Brandon  called 
her,  was  sitting  in  her  fine,  old-fashioned  drawing- 
room,  enjoying  her  invariable  Saturday  evening 
gossip  with  her  nephew-in-law,  Richard  Basker- 
ville,  preparatory  to  her  customary  Saturday 
evening  dinner.  This  Saturday  dinner  was  as 
much  of  an  institution  with  Mrs.  Luttrell  as  her 
ermine  cape  and  her  black- velvet  gown,  which  were 
annually  renewed,  or  her  free-spoken  tongue,  all 
of  them  being  Medic  and  Persian  in  nature. 

Nobody  knew  how  many  decades  this  Saturday 
evening  dinner  had  been  established,  just  as  no- 
body knew  Mrs.  Luttrell's  age,  except  that  it  was 
somewhere  between  sixty  and  ninety.  This  din- 
ner, which  no  more  than  six  persons  attended, 
took  place  at  the  unfashionable  hour  of  seven. 
But  seven  had  been  the  fashionable  hour  when 
Mrs.  Luttrell  began  her  Saturday  dinners,  and 
although  she  conceded  much  to  the  new  fashions 
introduced  by  the  smart  set  —  more  indeed  than 
she  ever  admitted  —  and  had  advanced  her  formal 
[118] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

dinner  hour  to  half-past  eight,  yet  she  clung  to 
seven  for  this  Saturday  evening  institution.  No 
other  dinner  invitation  could  lure  Mrs.  Luttrell 
from  her  own  table  on  Saturday  evenings,  and  it 
was  one  of  the  incidents  of  the  warfare  which  had 
once  raged  between  her  and  the  then  lady  of  the 
White  House  that  Mrs.  Luttrell  should  have  been 
asked  to  dine  at  the  White  House  on  a  Saturday 
evening.  Mrs.  Luttrell,  however,  came  off  tri- 
umphant. She  could  not  have  her  own  dinner 
that  night,  but  in  the  very  nick  of  time  she  heard 
of  the  death  of  a  seventeenth  cousin  in  Maryland. 
Mrs.  Luttrell  immediately  asked  to  be  excused 
from  the  White  House  on  the  ground  of  the  death 
of  a  relative,  and  clapped  herself,  her  coachman, 
and  footman  in  mourning  for  a  seventeenth  cousin 
she  had  not  seen  in  thirty  years  and  had  always 
cordially  detested. 

To  be  in  ignorance  of  the  sacredness  of  Mrs. 
Luttrell's  Saturday  evenings  was  a  crime  of  grave 
magnitude  in  her  eyes,  and  to  respect  her  rights 
on  Saturday  was  to  take  a  toboggan  slide  in  her 
favor.  It  was  the  law  that  Richard  Baskerville 
should  dine  with  her  on  Saturday,  and  although 
that  young  gentleman  maintained  a  perfect  inde- 
pendence towards  her  in  every  other  respect,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  she  had  made  a  will  giving 
[119] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

him  every  stiver  of  her  fortune,  he  was  careful  to 
reserve  his  Saturday  evenings  for  her. 

The  old  lady  and  the  young  man  sat  opposite 
each  other  before  a  glowing  wood  fire  in  the  great 
drawing-room.  Mrs.  Luttrell  was  a  small,  high- 
bred, handsome  woman,  with  snow-white  hair,  per- 
fect teeth,  a  charming  smile,  a  reckless  tongue,  and 
a  fixed  determination  to  have  her  own  way  twenty- 
four  hours  out  of  the  day  and  three  hundred  and 
sixty-five  days  in  the  year,  with  an  additional  day 
thrown  in  at  leap-year.  Time  had  left  a  few  ex- 
ternal marks  upon  her,  but  in  essentials  she  was 
the  same  woman  General  Brandon  had  danced  with 
forty-five  years  before.  She  was  in  love  with  the 
same  man,  who  even  then  was  in  his  early  grave, 
—  Richard  Luttrell,  the  husband  of  her  youth. 
He  had  been  dead  unnumbered  years,  and  only 
one  person  on  earth  —  his  nephew,  Richard  Bas- 
kerville  —  suspected  that  Mrs.  Luttrell  cherished 
her  husband's  memory  with  a  smouldering  and 
silent  passion,  —  the  only  thing  she  was  ever 
known  to  be  silent  about  in  her  life. 

Mrs.  Luttrell  sat  bolt  upright,  after  the  ancient 
fashion,  in  her  carved  ebony  chair,  while  Richard 
Baskerville  lounged  at  his  ease  on  the  other  side 
of  the  marble  mantel.  He  was  a  well-made  man 
of  thirty-five,  without  any  particular  merit  in  the 
[120] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

way  of  beauty;  but  so  clear  of  eye,  so  clean  cut  of 
feature,  so  expressive  of  a  man's  intelligence  and 
a  man's  courage,  that  people  forgot  to  ask  whether 
he  was  handsome  or  not.  Mrs.  Luttrell  always 
maintained  that  he  was  very  handsome,  but  found 
few  to  agree  with  her.  Her  belief  came,  how- 
ever, from  his  resemblance  to  the  miniature  of  her 
husband  which  she  kept  in  her  capacious  pocket  — 
for  she  still  insisted  on  pockets  in  her  gowns,  and 
this  miniature  never  left  her  by  day  or  night. 

Mrs.  Luttrell's  drawing-room  was  the  admira- 
tion and  the  despair  of  people  who  knew  some- 
thing about  drawing-rooms.  It  might  have  been 
taken  bodily  from  the  Second  French  Embassy, 
of  which  Mrs.  Luttrell  had  seen  a  good  deal,  for 
she  had  known  the  third  Napoleon  well  at  some 
indefinite  period  in  her  history.  The  room  was 
large  and  square  and  high-pitched,  and  wholly 
innocent  of  bay-windows,  cosey  corners,  and  such 
architectural  fallals.  The  ceiling  was  heavily  orna- 
mented with  plaster  in  the  Italian  style,  and  the 
cornice  was  superb.  Over  the  fireplace  was  a 
great  white  marble  mantel  with  a  huge  mirror 
above  it,  and  in  one  corner  of  the  room  a  grand 
piano  something  under  a  hundred  years  old  looked 
like  a  belle  in  hoopskirts.  There  was  a  wealth 
of  old  rosewood  furniture,  pictures,  candelabra, 
[121] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

girandoles,  Dresden  ornaments,  and  other  beau- 
tiful old  things  which  would  have  made  a  collector 
turn  green  with  envy. 

Mrs.  Luttrell  was  vain  about  her  drawing- 
room,  and  with  reason.  She  proudly  claimed  that 
there  was  not  a  single  technical  antique  in  it,  and 
frequently  declared  she  could  tell  the  age  of  any 
family  by  a  glance  at  their  drawing-room.  The 
newer  the  family  the  more  antique  the  furniture, 
and  when  a  family  was  absolutely  new  their  house 
was  furnished  with  antiques,  and  nothing  but 
antiques,  from  top  to  bottom. 

Mrs.  Luttrell  was  gossiping  hard  as  she  sat 
before  her  drawing-room  fire,  shading  her  eyes 
from  the  leaping  blaze  with  an  old-fashioned  lace 
fan  and  waiting  for  her  guests  to  arrive.  When 
Mrs.  Luttrell  gossiped,  she  was  happy.  One  of 
the  compensations  to  her  for  the  new  dispensa- 
tions in  Washington  society  was  that  it  gave  her 
plenty  to  gossip  about.  Ever  since  the  advent 
in  Washington  society  of  pickles,  dry-goods, 
patent  medicines,  shoes,  whiskey,  and  all  the 
other  brands  of  honest  trade,  she  had  been  en- 
gaged in  a  hand-to-hand  fight  to  maintain  her 
prestige  as  a  leading  hostess  of  Washington, 
against  the  swarms  of  newcomers,  whose  vast 
fortunes  made  Mrs.  Luttrell's  hitherto  ample 
[122] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

income  seem  like  genteel  poverty.  The  rest  of 
the  "  Cave-dwellers,"  as  the  original  society  of 
Washington  is  now  called,  had  never  made  any 
fight  at  all.  They  regarded  the  new  influx  with 
haughty  disdain  in  the  first  instance,  laughed  at 
their  gaucheries,  and  spoke  of  them  pityingly 
as,  "Poor  Mrs.  So-and-so,"  "Those  queer  per- 
sons from  nobody  knows  where."  The  first  ac- 
curate knowledge,  however,  that  came  to  them 
of  the  "  smart  set,"  as  the  new  people  are  called, 
was  when  the  Cave-dwellers  were  seized  by  the 
backs  of  their  necks  and  were  thrown  over  the 
ramparts  of  society,  leaving  the  smart  set  in  pos- 
session of  the  citadel. 

Mrs.  Luttrell,  however,  was  not  so  easily  dis- 
posed of  as  the  rest.  She  saw  that  the  Chinese 
policy  of  ignoring  the  enemy  and  representing  a 
total  rout  as  a  brilliant  victory  would  never  do ; 
so  she  set  about  holding  her  own  with  intelligence 
as  well  as  courage.  She  called  upon  the  new 
people,  invited  to  her  house  those  she  liked,  and 
Baskerville,  who  was  the  only  living  person  who 
dared  to  contradict  her,  declared  that  Mrs.  Lut- 
trell never  was  known  to  decline  an  invitation 
to  dine  with  any  form  of  honest  trade,  no  matter 
how  newly  emancipated.  Her  strongest  weapon 
was,  however,  the  capacity  she  had  always  pos- 
[123] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

sessed  of  bringing  men  about  her.  She  was  one 
of  those  men's  women  whom  age  cannot  wither 
nor  custom  stale.  Her  esprit,  her  knowledge  of 
how  to  make  men  comfortable  in  mind  and  body 
when  in  her  house,  her  insidious  flattery,  which 
usually  took  the  form  of  delicate  raillery,  had 
charmed  successive  generations  of  men.  Her 
kingdom  had  been  long  established,  and  she 
knew  how  to  reign. 

In  her  early  widowhood  she  had  been  much 
pestered  with  offers  of  marriage,  but  it  had  not 
taken  many  years  to  convince  her  world  that  she 
would  die  Sara  Luttrell.  Every  cause  except  the 
right  one  was  given  for  this,  for  of  all  women  Mrs. 
Luttrell  was  the  last  one  to  be  suspected  of  a 
sentiment  so  profound  as  the  lifelong  mourning 
for  a  lost  love.  But  it  was  perhaps  just  this  touch 
of  passionate  regret,  this  fidelity  to  an  ideal,  which 
constituted  half  her  charm  to  men.  At  an  age 
when  most  are  content  to  sink  into  grandmother- 
hood,  Mrs.  Luttrell  was  surrounded  by  men  of 
all  ages  in  a  manner  to  make  a  debutante  envious. 
Other  hostesses  might  have  to  rack  their  brains 
for  dinner  men  ;  Mrs.  Luttrell  was  always  embar- 
rassed with  riches  in  this  respect.  An  afternoon 
visit  at  her  house  meant  finding  a  dozen  desirable 
men  whom  hospitable  hostesses  languished  for  in 
[124] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

vain.  Even  a  tea,  that  function  dreaded  of  women 
because  it  means  two  women  to  one  man,  became 
in  Mrs.  Luttrell's  splendid,  old-fashioned  drawing- 
room  a  company  in  which  the  masculine  element 
exactly  balanced  the  feminine.  She  could  have 
made  the  fortune  of  a  debutante,  and  hence  am- 
bitious mothers  sought  her  favor.  Mrs.  Luttrell, 
however,  never  had  made  a  debutante's  fortune 
and  never  intended  to,  holding  that  the  power  to 
grant  a  favor  is  more  respected  than  the  favor 
itself. 

Then,  too,  it  was  well  known  that  Richard 
Baskerville,  one  of  the  most  desirable  and  agree- 
able men  in  Washington,  was  always  to  be  found 
at  her  house,  and  was  certain  to  inherit  her  for- 
tune ;  and  he  had  the  ability,  the  wit,  and  the 
grace  to  be  an  attraction  in  himself.  The  old 
lady  would  have  liked  it  well  if  Baskerville  had 
consented  to  live  in  a  suite  of  the  big,  unused 
rooms  in  the  house,  but  this  he  would  not  do. 
He  agreed  as  a  compromise,  however,  to  buy  a 
small  house  back  of  Mrs.  Luttrell's,  and  by  using 
an  entrance  in  her  large,  old-fashioned  garden,  it 
was  almost  as  if  he  were  in  the  same  house. 

Mrs.  Luttrell  followed  the  new  customs  and 
fashions  so  far  as  she  thought  judicious,  and  no 
farther.  She  knew  the  power  of  old  customs  and 
[125] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

fashions  when  properly  used.  She  held  to  her  big 
landau,  with  her  long-tailed  black  horses  and  her 
portly  negro  coachman  and  footman,  because  it 
gave  her  opportunities  to  intimidate  the  newly 
rich  while  apparently  apologizing  for  her  antique 
equipage. 

"  My  carriage  and  horses  and  servants  haven't 
varied  much  for  forty  years,  and  I  can't  change 
now.  It's  all  very  well  for  you  people  who  are 
accustomed  to  sudden  changes  to  have  your  smart 
broughams  and  victorias,  and  your  pink -and- white 
English  coachmen  and  footmen,  but  it  would  look 
perfectly  ridiculous  in  Sara  Luttrell,  don't  you 
see?"  This  to  some  aspiring  newcomers  whose 
equipage  had  been  in  a  steady  process  of  evolu- 
tion from  the  time  that  a  Dayton  wagon  was  a 
luxury  until  now  every  season  saw  a  complete  revo- 
lution in  their  stables.  Or,  "  I  know  my  ermine 
cape  looks  as  if  it  was  made  in  Queen  Elizabeth's 
time,  but  I  can't  afford  to  throw  it  away;  and, 
Lord  bless  you,  what  does  it  matter  whether  one 
is  in  the  fashion  or  not  ? "  This  to  a  lady  who 
knew  that  her  whole  social  existence  depended 
upon  her  being  in  fashion. 

It  was  ^insolent,  of  course,  but  Mrs.  Luttrell 
meant  to  be  insolent,  and  was  so  successfully, 
smiling  meanwhile  her  youthful  smile,  showing 
[126] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

her  perfect  teeth  and  certain  of  an  answering 
smile  from  the  men  who  were  always  at  her  elbow. 
Her  whole  world  then  thought  she  defied  and 
laughed  at  the  smart  set;  but  Richard  Basker- 
ville  saw,  and  had  the  assurance  to  tell  her,  that 
she  secretly  liked  them  very  much  and  even 
sought  their  countenance  by  unique  means. 

"  Well,"  said  Mrs.  Luttrell,  settling  herself  and 
adjusting  the  immortal  ermine  cape  around  her 
lace-covered  shoulders,  "I  have  a  surprise  in 
store  for  you  to-night.  Who  do  you  think  is  to 
dine  here  ?  " 

"  Myself  number  one,  Senator  and  Mrs.  Thorn- 
dyke,  and  Judge  Woodford.  I  believe  you  are  in 
love  with  that  man,  Sara  Luttrell."  This  calling 
her  by  her  first  name  Mrs.  Luttrell  reckoned  a 
charming  piece  of  impudence  on  Richard  Basker- 
ville's  part,  and  in  saying  it  his  smile  was  so 
pleasant,  his  voice  so  agreeable,  his  manner  so 
arch,  that  he  conveyed  extreme  flattery  by  it.  It 
made  her  the  same  age  as  himself. 

"No,  my  dear  boy,  you  are  mistaken  in  that 
particular ;  but  I  have  a  surprise  in  store  for 
you." 

A  pause. 

"  Why  don't  you  ask  me  who  it  is  ?  " 

"Because  you'll  tell  me  in  two  minutes,  if  I 
[127] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

just  let  you  alone.  You  never  could  keep  any- 
thing to  yourself." 

"It  is  —  Anne  Clavering." 

Richard  Baskerville  sat  up  quickly.  Surprise 
and  pleasure  shone  in  his  face.  "Why,  Sara,  I 
didn't  think  you  could  do  anything  as  decent  as 
that." 

"I  don't  know  why.  I've  always  liked  the 
girl.  And  I  believe  you  are  about  half  in  love 
with  her." 

"  You  are  such  a  suspicious  old  woman  !  But 
considering  the  share  I  am  taking  on  the  part  of 
the  original  mortgages  in  those  K.  F.  R.  land 
grants,  which  may  land  Senator  Clavering  in 
state's  prison,  I  feel  some  delicacy  in  paying  any 
attention  to  his  daughter." 

"Naturally,  I  should  think.  But  you  were 
deep  in  the  land-grant  lawsuits  before  you  ever 
met  Anne  Clavering." 

"  Yes,  that's  true.  She  once  asked  me  to  call 
but  I  never  felt  I  could  do  so  under  the  circum- 
stances, though  Clavering  himself,  who  is  a  pachy- 
derm so  far  as  the  ordinary  feelings  of  mankind 
go,  is  as  chummy  as  you  please  with  me  when- 
ever we  meet.  And  he  actually  invited  me  to 
visit  his  house  !  Miss  Clavering  probably  knows 
nothing  of  the  specific  reason  that  keeps  me  away, 
[128] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

but  Clavering  does,  you  may  be  sure.  I  hare 
met  Miss  Clavering  everywhere,  and  every  time 
I  see  her  I  am  lost  in  wonder  as  to  how  she  came 
to  be  Senator  Clavering's  daughter  or  the  sister 
of  Mrs.  Denman  and  that  youngest  daughter, 
Lydia." 

"  A  couple  of  painted  Jezebels,  that  are  enough 
to  drag  any  family  to  perdition.  The  old 
woman,  I  hear,  murders  the  king's  English  and 
eats  with  her  knife,  but  is  a  good  soul.  And  if 
it  wasn't  for  the  determined  stand  Anne  Claver- 
ing has  taken  for  her  mother,  I  don't  imagine 
there  is  much  doubt  that  Senator  Clavering 
would  have  divorced  her  long  ago.  But  Anne 
stands  up  for  her  mother  and  makes  them  all 
treat  her  properly,  and  is  assisted  by  the  brother, 

—  a  poor  rag  of  a  man,  but  perfectly  respectable, 

—  Reginald  Clavering.     Did  you  ever  notice  how 
common  people  run  to  high-flown  names  ?     None 
of  our  plain  Johns  and  Georges  and  Marys  and 
Susans   and   Jameses   for   them  —  they  get  their 
names,  I  think,  out  of  Ouida's  novels." 

Richard  Baskerville  rose  and  stood  in  front  of 
the  fire.  Mrs.  Luttrell  could  not  complain  of 
any  want  of  interest  on  his  part  in  the  subject 
under  discussion.  "Miss  Clavering,  as  I  told 
you,  invited  me  to  call  on  her,  when  I  first  met 
[129] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

her.  However,  I  had  scruples  about  going  to 
the  house  of  a  man  I  was  fighting  as  I  am  fight- 
ing Senator  Clavering.  So  I  never  went,  and 
she  never  repeated  the  invitation.  She  is  a  very 
proud  woman." 

"  Very.  And  she  is  the  only  one  of  her  class 
I  have  ever  seen  who  was  really  a  scientific 
fighter." 

"  How  pitiable  it  is,  though,  for  a  girl  to  have 
to  fight  her  way  through  society." 

"  Yes  —  but  Anne  Clavering  does  it,  and  does 
it  gallantly.  Nobody  can  be  impertinent  to  her 
with  impunity.  Do  you  know,  the  first  thing 
that  made  me  like  her  was  the  way  that  she  hit 
back  when  I  gave  her  a  gentle  correction." 

"I  am  delighted  to  hear  it,  and  I  hope  she 
whipped  you  well." 

"Not  exactly  —  but  she  stood  up  before  me 
long  enough  to  make  me  respect  her  and  ask  her 
to  come  to  one  of  my  little  Saturday  dinners." 

"  Mrs.  Thorndyke  is  always  asking  her  to  din- 
ner, and  I  know  of  no  woman  more  discerning 
than  Mrs.  Thorndyke." 

"Yes,   Constance   Thorndyke    knows  a    great 

deal.     But  you  see  her  husband  is  in  the  Senate 

and  so  she  has  to  have  some  sorts  of  people  at 

her  house  that  I  don't  have.     However,  I  know 

[130] 


MRS.    DARRELL 

she  is  really  a  friend  of  Anne  Clave  ring,  and  it  is 
perfectly  plain  that  although  Miss  Clavering  is  a 
nouveau  riche  herself,  she  hasn't  any  overwhelm- 
ing respect  for  her  own  '  order,'  as  Ouida  would 
say.  She  is  ten  times  more  flattered  to  be  enter- 
tained by  people  like  the  Thorndykes  and  myself 
than  by  the  richest  pork-packing  or  dry-goods 
family  in  Washington." 

"  Certainly  she  is,  as  a  woman  of  sense  would  be." 

"  As  for  that  divorcee,  Elise  Denman,  and  that 
younger  girl,  Lydia,  they  are  the  two  greatest 
scamps,  as  they  are  the  two  handsomest  women, 
in  this  town.  They  are  not  deficient  in  their 
own  peculiar  sort  of  sense  and  courage,  and  they 
have  whipped  the  Brentwood-Baldwins  hand- 
somely about  that  pew  in  St.  John's  Church. 
The  religion  of  these  brand-new  people  is  the 
most  diverting  thing  about  them,  next  to  their 
morals  !  " 

"  They  also  are  the  sons  of  God  !  "  replied 
Baskerville,  quoting. 

"  Don't  believe  that  for  a  moment !  Most  of 
'em  are  sons  and  daughters  of  Satan  and  nobody 
else.  If  ever  the  Episcopal  Church  —  the  Angli- 
can Church,  they  call  it  —  comes  out  squarely 
against  divorce,  I  don't  know  where  it  will  land 
the  smart  set  or  what  they  will  do  for  a  religion. 
[131] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

They  will  have  to  become  esoteric  Buddhists  or 
something  of  the  sort.  At  present  a  pew  in  a 
fashionable  church  is  the  very  first  round  on  the 
social  ladder.  I  have  gone  to  St.  John's  all 
my  life,  and  my  father  was  one  of  the  origi- 
nal pew-holders  ;  but  I  declare,  if  I  could  find 
a  well-warmed  Episcopal  church  in  southeast 
Washington  or  Anacostia  even,  I'd  go  to  it." 

"No,  you  wouldn't." 

"  Yes,  I  would.  I  don't  know  how  the  dispute 
with  the  Brentwood-Baldwins  came  about,  but 
there  was  a  pew  near  the  President's  which  both 
the  Clave  rings  and  the  Brentwood-Baldwins 
wanted,  and  those  two  pagan  daughters  of  Sen- 
ator Clavering  got  it.  You  ought  to  have  seen 
the  Brentwood-Baldwin  girl  and  those  other  two 
girls  pass  each  other  last  Sunday  morning  coming 
out  of  church  ;  they  exchanged  looks  which  were 
equivalent  to  a  slap  in  the  face." 

"  And  you  wouldn't  have  missed  seeing  it  for 
worlds." 

"  Why,  it's  true  I  like  to  see  a  fight." 

"  For  pure  love  of  fighting  I  never  saw  your 
equal,  Sara  Luttrell." 

"  I  come  by  it  honestly.  I  am  of  as  good  fight- 
ing stock  as  you  are,  Richard  Baskerville.  But 
the  Clavering-Brentwood-Baldwin  row  is  not  the 
[132] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

only  religious  war  in  this  town.  You  know  Mrs. 
James  Van  Cortlandt  Skinner  —  I  know  her  hus- 
band was  originally  Jim  Skinner  before  he  went 
to  glory." 

"  Now  who  told  you  that  ?  " 

"  Oh,  nobody ;  I  just  felt  it  in  my  bones. 
Well,  Mrs.  Skinner  has  a  new  and  original  fad 
—  that  woman  is  clever  !  She  has  seen  the 
automobile  fad,  and  the  fancy-ball  fad,  and  the 
monkey-dinner  fad,  and  the  dining-on-board-the- 
Emperor's-yacht  fad,  and  the  exclusive-school  fad, 
and  the  exclusive-theatrical-performance  fad,  and 
the  marrying-of -  a-daughter-to-a-belted-earl-like- 
a-thief-in-the-night  fad.  She  has  done  horse 
shows  and  yacht  races  and  dinners  to  the  Ambas- 
sador, and  now  she  has  outfooted  New  York 
and  Newport,  and  left  Chicago  at  the  post.  She 
has  a  private  chapel,  and  she's  going  to  have  a 
private  chaplain !  " 

"  Oh,  Lord,  you  dreamed  it !  " 

"  No,  I  didn't,  Richard,  my  dear.  You  see,  the 
Jim  Skinners  "  —  Mrs.  Luttrell  pronounced  it  as 
if  it  were  "  jimskinners  "  —  "  were  originally  hon- 
est Methodists  ;  but  these  people  shed  their  reli- 
gion along  with  their  old  clothes  and  plated  forks. 
And  now  Mrs.  Jimskinner  has  become  Mrs.  James 
Van  Cortlandt  Skinner  and  an  ardent  Episcopalian, 
[133] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

and  so  has  Gladys  Jimskinner,  and  Gwendolyn 
Jimskinner,  and  Lionel  Jimskinner,  and  Harold 
Jimskinner,  and  I  believe  that  woman  has  set  her 
heart  on  having  what  she  calls  an  Anglican  arch- 
bishop in  these  United  States." 

"  If  she  has,  I  know  it  was  you  who  put  the 
microbe  in  her  head." 

It  was  a  chance  shot,  but  it  hit  the  white. 
"  I  think  I  did,  Richard,"  meekly  replied  Mrs. 
Luttrell.  "  Mrs.  Jimskinner  —  I  mean  Mrs. 
James  Van  Cortlandt  Skinner  —  was  urging  me 
to  join  the  Order  of  St.  Monica  ;  that's  an  order 
in  which  widows  pledge  themselves  not  to  get 
married  again.  I  told  her  there  wasn't  the  least 
reason  for  me  to  join,  for,  although  I've  never  told 
my  age  to  any  living  person,  I  hardly  consider 
myself  on  the  matrimonial  list  any  longer.  And 
then  Mrs.  Van  Cortlandt  Skinner  told  me  of  the 
various  beautiful  brand-new  orders  in  the  Church, 
and  said  she  thought  of  getting  an  order  founded 
for  one  of  her  boys  ;  the  other  would  have  to 
marry  and  perpetuate  the  family.  And  I  sug- 
gested a  contemplative  order  with  a  nice  name, 
like  the  Order  of  St.  Werewolf." 

«  Oh,  Sara  !  " 

"  Yes,  I  did.  I  told  her  St.  Werewolf  was  much 
respected  in  the  Middle  Ages  ;  one  heard  a  good 
[134] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

deal  of  him  ;  and  she  swallowed  the  wolf  and  the 
saint  at  one  gulp.  She  said  she  rather  liked  the 
notion  and  might  build  a  beautiful  monastery  on 
her  estate  on  the  Hudson,  and  whichever  one  of 
her  boys  she  decided  to  indulge  in  a  life  of 
celibacy  she  would  have  made  the  first  superior. 
And  then  I  said  —  now,  Richard,  don't  be  rude 
—  I  said  how  much  simpler  all  these  delightful 
things  would  be  if  we  only  had  an  archbishop 
like  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury ;  and  Mrs. 
Van  Cortlandt  Skinner  said  that  she  had  often 
longed  for  an  archbishop  and  had  always  thought 
that  the  development  of  the  Church  in  America 
required  one  ;  and  then  I  caught  Senator  Thorn- 
dyke's  eye  —  we  were  coming  out  of  church  —  and 
I  ran  away." 

"  You  wicked  old  woman  !  What  will  you  do 
next  !  " 

"  I  haven't  done  anything.  You  see,  Mrs.  Jim- 
skinner  belongs  to  that  class  who  don't  see  any 
reason  why  they  shouldn't  have  anything  they 
happen  to  fancy.  If  they  get  married  and  don't 
like  it,  they  get  a  divorce  and  a  new  husband  or 
a  new  wife  as  they  get  a  new  butler  when  they 
discharge  the  one  they  have.  If  they  want  a  title, 
they  go  and  buy  one.  If  they  want  a  crest,  they 
simply  take  one.  They  can't  understand  why 
[135] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

they  shouldn't  do  anything  or  have  anything  they 
want.  I  declare,  Mrs.  Jimskinner  was  talking  to 
me  with  the  simplicity  of  a  child,  and  she's  as  bent 
on  that  private  chaplain  and  that  archbishop  as  if 
each  was  the  latest  style  of  automobile.  I  don't 
wonder  the  London  newspapers  guy  Americans, 
remembering  what  kind  of  Americans  find  their 
way  into  London  society." 

"That  reminds  me — I  met  General  Brandon 
two  days  ago,  and  his  daughter  Mrs.  Darrell." 

"  Yes,  Elizabeth  Darrell  has  come  back,  as  poor 
as  a  church  mouse,  and  dreadfully  changed.  I 
shall  call  to  see  her.  She  will  find  a  very  differ- 
ent Washington  from  the  one  she  left  ten  years 
ago." 

"  Miss  Clavering,"  announced  the  negro  butler. 

Anne  Clavering,  graceful  and  self-possessed, 
entered  the  room.  She  had  not  the  sumptuous 
beauty  of  her  sisters,  nor  remarkable  beauty  at 
all ;  yet,  as  Elizabeth  Darrell  had  seen  in  that  first 
accidental  view  of  her,  she  was  more  than  beauti- 
ful —  she  was  interesting.  She  had  no  marks  of 
race,  but  she  had  every  mark  of  refinement.  Her 
gown  was  simple,  but  exquisite,  and  she  wore  no 
jewels.  Mrs.  Luttrell  received  her  amiably  and 
even  affectionately,  and  her  quick  eye  noted  that 
both  Anne  and  Baskerville  blushed  at  meeting. 
[136] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"So  you  are  not  above  coming  out  to  an  un- 
fashionable dinner  with  an  old  fogy,"  she  said, 
taking  Anne's  hand. 

"  I  believe  it  is  considered  one  of  the  greatest 
privileges  of  Washington  to  dine  with  you  at  one 
of  your  '  unfashionable  dinners,' "  Anne  replied, 
with  her  pleasant  smile.  This  made  Anne's 
fortune  with  Mrs.  Luttrell. 

In  a  minute  or  two  more  Senator  and  Mrs. 
Thorndyke  were  announced,  and  they  were 
promptly  followed  by  Judge  Woodford,  a  hand- 
some antique  gentleman,  who  had  for  forty  years 
counted  on  being  one  day  established  as  the  head 
of  Mrs.  Luttrell's  fine  house.  The  Thorndykes 
were  not  a  young  couple,  although  they  had  not 
been  long  married.  Their  love-affair  had  covered 
a  long  period  of  separation  and  estrangement,  and 
at  last  when  fate  had  relented  and  had  brought 
them  together  in  their  maturity,  it  gave  them 
by  way  of  recompense  a  depth  of  peace,  of  confi- 
dence, of  quiet  happiness,  and  a  height  of  thrilling 
joy  at  coming  into  their  own  inheritance  of  love, 
that  made  for  them  a  heaven  on  earth.  Thorn- 
dyke  was  a  high-bred,  scholarly  man  of  the  best 
type  of  New  England,  who  hid  under  a  cool 
exterior  an  ardent  and  devoted  nature.  Con- 
stance Thorndyke  was  exteriorly  the  scintillant, 
[137] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

magnetic  Southern  woman,  but  inwardly  she  was 
as  strong  and  as  sustaining  as  Thorndyke  himself. 
Neither  of  them  had  a  grain  of  mawkish  senti- 
mentality, and  they  were  always  differing  play- 
fully when  they  really  differed  seriously;  but  they 
never  differed  in  their  love  and  admiration  of 
what  was  good. 

Baskerville  took  Anne  out  to  dinner.  He  had 
several  times  had  that  good  fortune,  especially  in 
Mrs.  Thorndyke's  house,  and  so  far  as  dinner 
companions  went  he  and  Anne  were  well  ac- 
quainted. Anne  had  been  deeply  mortified  at 
Baskerville's  ignoring  her  invitation  to  call,  and 
the  reason  she  at  once  suspected  —  his  knowledge 
of  her  father's  character  and  his  share  in  furnish- 
ing information  to  the  senatorial  committee  which 
was  investigating  Senator  Clavering.  She  did 
not  for  one  moment  suspect  that  Baskerville  put 
compulsion  on  himself  to  keep  away  from  her 
house.  She  was  conscious  of  a  keen  pleasure  in 
his  society,  and  a  part  of  the  gratification  she  felt 
at  being  asked  to  one  of  Mrs.  Luttrell's  intimate 
dinners  was  that  Baskerville  should  know  how 
Mrs.  Luttrell  esteemed  her. 

The  dinner  fulfilled  all  of  Anne's  expectations. 
The  Thorndykes  were  socially  accomplished,  and 
Judge  Woodford  had  been  a  professional  diner-out 
[138] 


BASKERVII.I.K  TOOK  ANNE  OUT  TO  IMXXER.' 


MRS.   DARRELL 

since  the  days  when  President  Buchanan  had 
made  him  a  third  secretary  of  legation  at  Paris. 
Anne  Clavering  found  herself  adopted  into  the 
small  circle,  so  different  in  birth  and  rearing  from 
her  own,  by  the  freemasonry  of  good  sense  and 
good  manners  —  in  which  she,  however,  was  the 
equal  of  anybody. 

Mrs.  Luttrell  shone  at  her  own  table,  and  the 
restraint  she  put  upon  her  own  tongue  revealed 
her  to  be,  when  she  chose,  a  person  of  perfect 
tact.  And,  indeed,  her  most  courageous  speeches 
were  matters  of  calculation,  and  were  in  them- 
selves a  species  of  tact.  When  entertaining 
guests  in  her  own  house,  however,  she  showed 
only  the  amiable  side  of  her  nature  ;  and  she  was 
always  amiable  to  Richard  Baskerville,  the  one 
human  being  in  the  world  whom  she  really  loved 
and  feared.  Anne  was  extremely  amused  at  the 
attitude  of  Baskerville  to  Mrs.  Luttrell,  shown  by 
such  things  as  calling  her  by  her  first  name  and 
hectoring  her  affectionately,  —  all  of  which  Mrs. 
Luttrell  took  meekly,  only  prophesying  that  if 
he  ever  married,  he  would  make  an  intolerable 
husband. 

Anne  Clavering  noted  that  among  these  people 
of  old  and  fixed  positions  there  was  a  great  deal 
of  chaff,  while  among  the  new  people  there  was 
[139] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

always  great  formality.  The  manners  of  the  one 
set  were  simple,  and  of  the  latter  elaborate.  She 
also  saw,  being  of  a  quick  eye,  that  there  were 
many  differences  in  little  things  between  the  old 
and  the  new.  The  new  had  a  different  and  com- 
plex fork  for  every  course,  but  Mrs.  Luttrell  had, 
except  some  very  old-fashioned  oyster  forks,  the 
same  handsome,  plain  old  forks  which  had  been 
in  use  in  her  family  since  silver  forks  were  first 
adopted.  There  was  no  opportunity,  if  she  had 
wished,  to  emulate  a  brand-new  Washington 
hostess,  who  mentioned  to  a  distinguished  guest 
that  he  was  eating  his  fish  with  the  wrong  fork. 
And  Mrs.  Luttrell  had  the  temerity  to  have  on 
the  table  her  splendid  old  decanters,  in  which  was 
served  the  very  last  old  port  in  Washington, 
"laid  down  by  papa  in  '59." 

When  the  dinner  was  over  they  closed  around 
the  drawing-room  fire  and  talked  cosily,  as  people 
can  seldom  talk  in  tjie  hurrying,  rushing  twentieth 
century  ;  and  then  Mrs.  Thorndyke,  at  Mrs.  Lut- 
trell's  request,  went  to  the  grand  piano  and  sang 
sweetly  some  songs  as  old-fashioned  as  the  piano. 
Anne  remembered  with  a  blush  the  professional 
singers  who  were  considered  essential  to  the 
Clavering  house  after  one  of  the  large,  magnifi- 
cent, and  uncomfortable  dinners  which  were  a 
[140] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

burden  and  an  anxiety  to  all  of  the  Clavering 
family. 

When  the  carriages  were  announced,  everybody 
was  surprised  at  the  lateness  of  the  hour.  Anne 
went  up  to  Mrs.  Luttrell  and  thanked  her  sin- 
cerely and  prettily  for  one  of  the  pleasantest 
evenings  she  had  ever  spent  in  Washington. 
Mrs.  Luttrell,  who  declared  herself  totally  indif- 
ferent to  blame  or  praise  from  one  of  the  new 
people,  was  hugely  flattered  by  this  expression 
from  a  Clavering. 

Baskerville,  having  antique  manners,  put  Anne 
in  her  carriage,  and  contrived  to  express  in  this 
small  action  a  part  of  the  admiration  and  homage 
he  felt  for  her.  Anne,  driving  home  in  the 
November  night,  experienced  a  strong  and  sudden 
revulsion  of  feeling  from  the  quiet  enjoyment 
of  the  evening.  Bitterness  overwhelmed  her. 
"  How  much  happier  and  better  off  are  those 
people  than  I  and  all  my  kind  !  "  she  thought. 
"  They  have  no  struggles  to  make,  no  slights  to 
swallow  or  avenge,  no  social  mortifications,  noth- 
ing to  hide,  to  fear,  to  be  ashamed  of,  while  I  —  " 
She  buried  her  face  in  her  hands  as  she  leaned 
back  in  the  carriage,  and  wept  at  the  cruel  thought 
that  Baskerville  would  not  come  to  her  house 
because  he  did  not  think  her  father  a  decent  man. 
[141] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

As  she  entered  her  own  street  she  caught 
sight  of  Count  Rosalka,  a  young  attache,  helping 
Elise  Denman  out  of  a  cab  at  the  corner.  Elise 
ran  along  the  street  and  under  the  porte-cochere 
as  Anne  got  out  of  the  carriage  and  walked 
up  the  steps.  Elise's  eyes  were  dancing,  her 
mouth  smiling  ;  she  looked  like  a  bacchante. 

"  Remember,"  she  said,  catching  Anne  by  the 
arm,  "I've  been  out  to  dinner,  too." 

The  door  was  opened,  not  by  one  of  the  gor- 
geous footmen,  but  by  Lydia,  handsomer,  younger, 
and  wickeder-looking  than  Elise.  "  Good  for 
you,  Lyd,"  whispered  Elise  ;  "  I'll  do  as  well  by 
you  sometime."  The  footman  then  appeared, 
and  grinned  openly  when  Lydia  remarked  that 
as  she  was  passing  through  the  hall  she  recog- 
nized Miss  Clavering's  ring  and  opened  the  door. 

Anne  went  upstairs,  her  heart  sick  within  her. 
As  she  passed  her  mother's  door  she  stopped,  and 
a  tremulous  voice  within  called  her.  She  entered 
and  sat  awhile  on  her  mother's  elaborate,  lace- 
trimmed  bed.  Mrs.  Clavering,  a  homely  and 
elderly  woman,  looked  not  less  homely  and 
elderly  because  of  her  surroundings.  But  not 
all  the  splendor  of  her  lace  and  satin  bed  could 
eclipse  the  genuine  goodness,  the  meekness,  the 
gentleness,  in  her  plain,  patient  face.  She  listened 
[142] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

eagerly  to  Anne's  description  of  the  dinner, 
which  was  cheerful  enough,  albeit  her  heart 
misgave  her  cruelly  about  Elise  and  Lydia. 

When  she  had  finished  speaking  Mrs.  Claver- 
ing  said,  patting  Anne's  head  with  a  kind  of 
furtive  affection,  "I  think  you  know  real  nice, 
well-behaved  people,  my  dear,  and  I  wish  the 
other  girls  "  —  "  gurls  "  she  called  them  —  "  were 
like  you." 

At  that  moment  Baskerville  and  Senator  Thorn- 
dyke  were  sitting  in  Baskerville's  library,  dis- 
cussing a  bottle  of  prime  old  whiskey  and  looking 
at  some  books  from  a  late  auction.  Mrs.  Thorn- 
dyke  had  driven  home,  and  Senator  Thorndyke, 
preferring  to  walk,  was  spending  an  hour  mean- 
while in  masculine  talk  unrestrained  by  the 
presence  of  the  ladies.  The  two  men  were  inti- 
mate, an  intimacy  which  had  originated  when 
Baskerville  was  a  college  senior  and  Thorndyke 
was  on  the  committee  of  their  Greek-letter 
society.  There  was  a  strong  sympathy  between 
them,  although  Thorndyke  was  a  New  Englander 
of  New  Englanders  and  Baskerville  a  Marylander 
of  Marylanders.  Both  were  lawyers  of  the  old- 
time,  legal-politico  sort,  both  of  them  scholarly 
men,  both  of  them  independent  of  popular  favor ; 
and  both  of  them,  while  preaching  the  purest 
[143] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

democracy,  were  natural  aristocrats.  They  be- 
longed to  opposite  political  parties,  but  that 
rather  added  zest  to  their  friendship.  The 
library  in  Baskerville's  home,  across  the  garden 
from  Mrs.  Luttrell's,  was  in  the  second  story  and 
extended  the  full  width  of  the  house.  It  was 
essentially  a  bachelor's  working  library,  plain, 
comfortable,  well  warmed  and  lighted,  and  with 
an  engaging  touch  of  shabbiness.  A  big  leather- 
covered  table  was  in  the  middle  of  the  room,  and 
under  the  green  light  from  a  student  lamp  were 
displayed  the  books,  the  whiskey,  the  water,  and 
the  glasses.  Baskerville's  mind  was  not,  however, 
on  the  books  he  was  showing,  but  on  Anne  Clav- 
ering,  and  incidentally  on  Senator  Clavering. 

"  How  do  you  account  for  Miss  Clavering  being 
the  daughter  of  Senator  Clavering?"  he  asked 
Thorndyke,  as  they  pulled  at  their  cigars. 

"  Those  things  can't  be  accounted  for,  although 
one  sees  such  strange  dissimilarities  in  families, 
everywhere  and  all  the  time.  Miss  Clavering  is, 
no  doubt,  a  case  of  atavism.  Somewhere,  two  or 
three  generations  back,  there  was  a  strain  of 
refinement  and  worth  in  her  family,  and  she  in- 
herits from  it.  But  I  see  something  in  her  of 
Clavering's  good  qualities  —  because  he  has  some 
good  qualities  —  courage,  for  example." 
[144] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  Courage  —  I  should  think  so.  Why,  the  way 
that  man  has  fought  the  courts  shows  the  most 
amazing  courage.  He  is  a  born  litigant,  and 
it  is  extraordinary  how  he  has  managed  to  use 
the  law  to  crush  his  opponents  and  has  escaped 
being  crushed  himself.  And  in  trying  to  fol- 
low his  turnings  and  windings  in  this  K.  F.  R. 
swindle  it  is  astounding  to  see  how  he  has  con- 
tested every  step  of  an  illegal  transaction  until 
he  has  got  everybody  muddled  —  lawyers,  State 
and  Federal  courts,  and  the  whole  kit  of  them. 
As  fast  as  one  injunction  was  vacated  he  would 
sue  out  another.  He  seems  to  have  brought 
a  separate  and  distinct  lawsuit  for  every  right 
in  every  species  of  property  he  ever  possessed 
at  any  time  —  of  all  sorts  :  lands,  mines,  railways, 
and  corporations.  He  has  pocketed  untold  mill- 
ions and  has  invoked  the  law  to  protect  him 
when  ninety-nine  men  out  of  the  hundred  would 
have  been  fugitives  from  justice.  He  is  the 
most  difficult  scoundrel  to  catch  I  ever  met  — 
but  we  will  catch  him  yet." 

"  I  think  you  are  hot  on  his  trail  in  the 
K.  F.  R.  matter,"  answered  Thorndyke.  "I 
believe  myself  that  when  the  great  expose  is 
made  before  the  investigating  committee  it  will 
recommend  his  expulsion  from  the  Senate,  and 
[145] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

three-fourths  of  the  senators  will  support  the 
committee.  The  legislature  is  safe,  so  the 
party  won't  lose  a  seat;  and  in  any  event  I 
don't  believe  we  can  afford  to  hold  on  to  a 
man  like  Clavering  after  the  country  knows 
about  him  —  especially  with  a  presidential  cam- 
paign coming  on  within  the  year.  I  think, 
with  all  his  talents,  he  would  not  be  fitted 
for  public  life  if  he  were  as  honest  as  he  is 
dishonest.  He  has  no  idea,  after  all  his  liti- 
gation, of  sound  legal  principles,  and  he  is 
fully  persuaded  that  any  man,  any  court,  any 
legislature,  may  be  bought;  and  a  more  dan- 
gerous fallacy  doesn't  exist  for  a  public  man 
than  that.  He  has  never  submitted  to  party 
discipline  and  has  played  politics  with  every 
party  that  has  ever  made  a  showing  in  his 
state.  For  all  his  money,  he  has  never  been 
a  contributor  to  party  funds;  so  I  think,  mak- 
ing due  allowances  for  the  weakness  of  human 
nature,  that  a  horrible  example  will  be  made 
of  Clavering,  and  we  shall  thereby  deprive  you 
of  an  effective  party  cry  in  the  campaign.  You 
are  really  doing  us  a  service  by  your  course, 
because  without  your  unravelling  the  legal 
tangle  I  doubt  if  anything  could  have  been 
made  out  of  the  K.  F.  R.  frauds.  I  have  no 
[146] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

sympathy  to  waste  on  Clavering  or  any  of  his 
family  that  I  know  of,  except  Miss  Clavering. 
It  will  go  hard  with  her." 

Baskerville's  tanned  complexion  grew  a  little 
pale,  and  he  sat  silent  for  some  moments;  so 
silent  that  Thorndyke  began  to  suspect  Mrs. 
Thorndyke's  idea  was  the  right  one  after  all 
—  Baskerville  was  in  love  with  Anne  Claver- 
ing. Thorndyke  had  laughed  at  it  as  a 
woman's  fancy,  saying  to  her  that  a  woman 
couldn't  see  a  man  pick  up  a  girl's  handker- 
chief without  constructing  a  matrimonial  project 
on  the  basis  of  it;  but  Constance  Thorndyke 
had  stoutly  maintained  her  opinion  that  Basker- 
ville was  in  love  with  Anne  Clavering.  His 
attitude  now  certainly  indicated  a  very  strong 
interest  in  her,  especially  when  he  said,  after 
a  considerable  pause:  — 

"  If  I  had  known  Miss  Clavering  before  this 
K.  F.  R.  matter  was  started,  perhaps  I  shouldn't 
have  gone  into  it.  There  is  something  very  pain- 
ful, you  must  know,  Thorndyke,  in  dealing  a  blow 
at  a  woman  —  and  a  woman  like  Miss  Clavering. 
By  heaven,  for  all  the  luxury  she  lives  in  and  all 
the  respect  and  admiration  she  commands,  there 
is  not  a  woman  in  Washington  whom  I  pity 
more !  " 

[147] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Thorndyke  had  been  turning  over  the  leaves 
of  a  beautiful  Apuleius,  which  was  one  of  the 
treasures  Baskerville  was  exhibiting  to  him. 
He  opened  the  volume  at  the  fifth  metamor- 
phosis and  read  out  of  it  a  single  phrase  which 
made  Baskerville's  face  gain  color :  " '  The  bold, 
blind  boy  of  evil  ways.'  There's  nothing  in  all 
those  old  Greek  literary  fellows  which  excels 
this  in  humor,  although  what  there  is  humorous 
in  modern  love  I  can't  see.  It's  the  most  tragic 
thing  in  life,  and  if  it  is  genuine,  it  draws  blood 
every  time." 

Thorndyke  had  reason  to  say  this.  He  had 
spent  the  eighteen  best  years  of  his  life  solitary 
and  ill  at  ease  because  of  a  woman's  love  and 
another  woman's  spite,  and  not  all  the  happi- 
ness of  married  life  could  ever  make  either  him 
or  Constance  Thorndyke  forget  their  starved 
hearts  in  those  eighteen  years  of  estrangement 
and  separation.  But  as  normal  men  deal  with 
sentimentalities  in  a  direct  and  simple  manner, 
he  added,  after  a  minute :  "  Miss  Clavering 
ought  to  marry.  If  she  could  be  cut  loose 
from  Clavering  himself  and  those  two  hand- 
some and  outrageous  sisters  of  hers,  it  would 
be  an  unmixed  blessing.  But  with  all  Miss 
Clavering's  merit  and  charms,  that  family  of 
[148] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

hers   will    always   be   a    handicap   with    a    man 
of  the  sort  she  would  be  likely  to  marry." 

"Not  if  he  really  loved  her,  Thorndyke." 
Senator  Thorndyke  smoked  on  in  silence. 
"  And,"  continued  Baskerville,  "  her  mother 
is  a  most  worthy  woman,  if  uneducated;  and 
although  Reginald  Clavering  is  a  great  fool,  I 
believe  he  is  a  thoroughly  upright  man  and 
even  a  gentleman.  So  you  see  it  is  not  wholly 
a  family  of  degenerates." 

Thorndyke,  seeing  which  way  the  tide  was 
setting,  remarked  with  perfect  sincerity,  "  Miss 
Clavering  is  worthy  of  any  man;  and  I  say  so 
not  only  on  my  own  judgment,  but  on  my 
wife's." 

"Sanest,  soundest  woman  in  Washington  — 
except  Miss  Clavering  herself,"  was  Basker- 
ville's  reply  to  this. 

When  Senator  Thorndyke  reached  home  an 
hour  afterwards,  he  roused  his  wife  to  tell  her 
that  he  believed  that  Baskerville  was  in  love 
with  Anne  Clavering  after  all. 

"  And  has  been  ever  since  he  knew  her ;  but 
men  are  so  dense,  he  didn't  know  it  himself  — 
much  less  did  you  know  it  until  it  became  as 
obvious  as  the  Washington  Monument,"  was 
Mrs.  Thorndyke's  wifely  reply. 
[149] 


Chapter  Nine 

THE  next  day  was  a  bright  November  Sunday, 
and  after  an  early  luncheon  Baskerville  started 
out  for  a  walk  into  the  country.  Anne  Clavering 
was  much  in  his  mind,  and  he  was  beginning  to 
debate  with  himself  in  this  wise :  if  Senator 
Clavering  had  no  delicacy  about  inviting  him 
to  call,  why  should  he  be  too  delicate-minded 
to  go?  Which  proves  that  Baskerville  was  in 
love  with  Anne  Clavering,  or  he  would  have 
said  that  for  him  to  go  to  a  man's  house  under 
the  circumstances  in  which  he  would  enter  Sena- 
tor Clavering's  was  an  outrageous  breach  of 
propriety. 

When  he  got  well  out  of  the  town,  he  met  the 
scanty  congregation  of  a  small  Episcopal  chapel 
in  the  suburbs.  Among  those  strolling  home- 
ward he  speedily  recognized  General  Brandon 
and  Elizabeth  Darrell  —  and  with  them  Reginald 
Clavering.  This  only  son  of  Senator  Clavering's 
was  no  more  like  him  than  Anne  was,  and,  indeed, 
very  much  resembled  Anne,  except  that  he  had 
neither  her  grace  nor  her  intelligence.  He  had  a 
[150] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

good  and  affectionate  heart,  and  in  a  foolish, 
blundering  way  was  both  an  honest  man  and  a 
gentleman.  His  life,  however,  was  given  over  to 
small  and  futile  things,  and  even  his  piety,  which 
was  genuine,  embodied  a  childish  worship  of 
ecclesiastical  trifles.  He  was  the  mainstay,  chief 
financial  backer,  and  clerical  man-of-all-work  in 
the  little  chapel,  while  his  sisters,  Elise  and 
Lydia,  fought  with  the  Brentwood-Baldwins  at 
St.  John's,  and  Anne,  after  going  to  an  early 
morning  service  at  the  nearest  church,  devoted 
the  rest  of  her  Sunday  to  her  mother. 

Baskerville  stopped  and  spoke  with  great  cor- 
diality to  the  party.  He  had  known  Elizabeth 
Darrell  well  in  her  girlhood,  and  there  was  a  re- 
mote, seventeenth-cousin,  Maryland- Virginia  con- 
nection between  the  Baskervilles  and  the  Brandons. 
His  first  glance  at  her  in  her  mourning  costume 
showed  him  that  she  had  suffered  much,  and  her 
beauty  was  partially  eclipsed.  She  had  gained 
interest,  however,  as  the  case  often  is,  by  learning 
the  hard  lessons  of  life,  and  Baskerville  saw  that 
she  might  regain  all  and  more  of  her  good  looks 
with  returning  flesh  and  color,  and  a  loss  of  the 
wearied  and  forlorn  expression  in  her  still  glorious 
dark  eyes.  He  asked  permission  to  call  upon 
her,  and  Elizabeth  assented  with  outward  grace 
[151] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

and  cheerfulness  ;  but,  in  truth,  it  mattered  little 
to  her  then  whether  she  ever  saw  any  one  again, 
except  her  father,  and  —  humiliating  thought  !  — 
Pelham,  once  more.  For,  deeply  incensed  as  she 
was  with  Pelham,  the  thought  of  ever  again  meet- 
ing him  was  profoundly  agitating  to  her.  She 
inquired  of  Baskerville  about  Mrs.  Luttrell,  and 
sent  her  a  kind  message  ;  then  they  parted  and 
went  upon  their  several  ways. 

Half  an  hour  afterwards,  when  Elizabeth  Dar- 
rell  was  nearing  her  own  door,  Senator  Clavering 
—  who,  sitting  at  his  library  window,  caught  sight 
of  her  graceful  black  figure  as  she  stopped  with 
her  father  and  talked  a  few  minutes  with  Reginald 
Clavering  —  started  to  his  feet,  his  keen,  hand- 
some eyes  fixed  upon  her  with  admiring  approval. 
He  remembered  her  perfectly  well,  that  beautiful 
girl  he  had  seen  on  the  icy  night  ten  years  ago 
when  he  had  watched  the  gay  people  flocking  to 
the  Charity  Ball,  and  the  little  trinket  he  had 
unconsciously  crushed  under  his  foot.  He  had 
wondered  a  dozen  times  since  he  had  been  in 
Washington,  and  had  often  asked,  what  had 
become  of  General  Brandon's  beautiful  daughter, 
and  was  told  that  she  had  married  a  British  Army 
man  and  had  disappeared  in  the  wilderness.  He 
had  never  seen  General  Brandon  from  that  hour, 
[152] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

although  they  lived  opposite,  General  Brandon's 
hours  being  very  different  from  Senator  Claver- 
ing's  and  their  habits  being  as  dissimilar  as  could 
possibly  be  imagined. 

Clavering  was  a  connoisseur  in  feminine  beauty, 
and  all  forms  of  it  appealed  to  him.  He  thought 
Elizabeth  twice  as  beautiful  as  he  had  done  in 
that  passing  glimpse  of  her,  ten  years  before,  in 
the  bloom  of  her  girlhood.  Strange  to  say,  the 
languid,  interesting,  and  somewhat  tragic  type 
which  Elizabeth  Darrell  now  represented  was  the 
most  attractive  to  him  —  perhaps  because  it  is 
the  rarest.  "  By  Jove,  what  a  woman  !  I  must 
know  her,"  was  his  inward  comment.  He 
watched  Elizabeth  intently,  her  fragile  figure, 
her  peculiar  grace  of  movement,  the  note  of  dis- 
tinction in  her  whole  person  and  air ;  and  then 
and  there  he  determined  to  resurrect  his  acquaint- 
ance with  General  Brandon,  whose  relationship  to 
her  was  obvious,  and  whom  Clavering  had  no  more 
forgotten  than  General  Brandon  had  forgotten  him. 

Presently  Reginald  Clavering  entered  the 
house,  and  the  first  sound  that  met  his  ears 
was  something  between  a  wail  and  a  shout  which 
came  from  the  upper  region.  Reginald  winced  at 
the  sound.  His  mother  still  held  to  her  original 
Baptist  faith — about  the  only  thing  pertaining 
[153] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

to  her  early  life  which  she  had  not  meekly  given 
up.  She  was  at  that  moment  enjoying  the  spirit- 
ual ministrations  of  a  Baptist  minister  who  came 
sometimes  on  Sundays  to  pray  with  her  and  sing 
camp-meeting  hymns  —  to  the  intense  diversion 
of  the  smart  English  footman  and  gay  French 
maids,  of  whom  Mrs.  Clavering  was  in  deadly 
fear.  And  to  make  it  worse  for  Reginald,  Anne 
Clavering,  instead  of  setting  her  face  against  this 
unchurchmanlike  proceeding,  actually  aided  and 
abetted  her  mother  in  her  plebeian  sort  of  reli- 
gion, and  joined  her  clear  note  to  the  Rev.  Mr. 
Smithers'  bellowing  and  Mrs.  Clavering's  husky 
contralto.  The  whole  thing  offended  Reginald 
Clavering's  aesthetic  sense;  but  it  was  a  proof 
that  he  had  much  that  was  good  in  him  that  he 
bore  these  proceedings  silently,  as  became  a 
gentleman,  a  Christian,  and  an  Anglican,  and 
made  no  complaint  to  any  one  except  Anne. 

As  he  passed  the  open  library  door,  Senator 
Clavering  called  out  to  him  in  that  rich  and  melo- 
dious voice  which  the  stenographers  in  the  Senate 
gallery  declared  the  most  agreeable  and  easily 
followed  voice  of  any  member  of  the  Senate: 
"  Hello !  What  is  the  name  of  that  infernally 
pretty  woman  whom  you  were  escorting  just  now?" 

'*  Mrs.  Darrell,  the  widowed  daughter  of  Gen- 
[154] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

eral  Brandon.  General  Brandon  is  one  of  the 
vestrymen  at  St.  Gabriel's  Chapel,"  replied  Regi- 
nald, stiffly. 

"  Yes,  fine  old  fellow.  I  knew  him  more  than 
thirty  years  ago  when  he  was  a  captain  of  infantry 
out  on  the  plains  and  I  was  a  sutler,  as  it  was 
called  then.  Handsome  old  chap  still,  and  his 
daughter  is  like  him.  You  show  good  taste,  my 
boy.  I  thought  you'd  find  something  more  enter- 
taining than  religion  out  at  that  chapel." 

Reginald  Clavering  scorned  to  reply  to  this, 
but  went  on  to  his  study  in  another  part  of  the 
house.  In  a  few  minutes  he  heard  his  father's 
step  on  the  stair,  and  dutifully  opened  the  door 
for  him.  Clavering  entered,  threw  himself  in  a 
great  chair,  and  began  to  look  around  him  with 
an  amused  smile.  The  room  was  a  museum  of 
ecclesiastical  pictures  and  gimcracks. 

"  When  I  was  your  age,"  said  Clavering,  laugh- 
ing openly,  "  I  hadn't  a  room  like  this  —  I  shared 
a  board  shanty  with  a  fellow  from  God  knows 
where,  who  had  served  a  term  in  state's  prison. 
But  he  was  the  finest  smelter  expert  I  ever  saw, 
and  had  the  best  eye  for  a  pretty  woman.  You 
couldn't  see  the  boards  in  our  walls  for  the  pic- 
tures of  ballet  dancers  and  the  like.  Nothing  in 
the  least  like  this."  And  he  laughed. 
[155] 


MRS.    DARRELL 

Reginald's  pale  face  flushed  with  many  emo- 
tions. His  father's  tone  and  manner  expressed  a 
frank  scorn  for  him  and  all  his  surroundings. 
Clavering  kept  on  :  — 

"  My  roommate  —  nobody  had  a  room  to  himself 
in  those  diggings  —  taught  me  how  to  differenti- 
ate among  pretty  women."  Clavering  was  diverted 
at  the  spectacle  of  a  man  shrinking  from  such  a 
discussion.  "  Now,  of  your  sisters,  Anne  is  really 
the  best  looking  —  the  most  effective,  that  is. 
Elise  and  Lydia  are  of  the  tulip  variety.  Anne 
is  something  more  and  different." 

"Elise  and  Lydia  are  both  of  them  strikingly 
like  you,  sir,"  replied  Reginald.  It  was  the 
nearest  approach  to  sarcasm  he  had  ever  made  in 
his  life.  Clavering  enjoyed  the  cut  at  himself 
immensely. 

"  Very  neat ;  thank  you.  Now  I  should  say 
that  Mrs.  —  what's  her  name  ?  —  old  Brandon's 
daughter  is  a  remarkably  attractive,  even  beauti- 
ful woman,  although  she  strikes  me  at  first  glance 
as  one  of  those  women,  not  exactly  young,  who 
haven't  yet  found  themselves.  Perhaps  you'll 
show  the  lady  the  way." 

"  Sir,"  said  Reginald,  after  a  pause,  "  you  shock 
me!" 

Clavering  was  not  in  the  least  annoyed  at  this. 
[156] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

He  looked  at  Reginald  as  one  studies  an  amusing 
specimen,  and  said,  as  if  to  himself,  "  Good  God  I 
that  you  should  be  my  son  !  "  He  then  took  up 
some  of  the  books  on  the  table  and  began  to  turn 
them  over,  laughing  silently  to  himself  the  while. 
The  books  corresponded  with  the  pictures  and 
ornaments.  Reginald  Clavering  found  all  of  his 
family  a  cross,  except  his  sister  Anne,  and  his 
father  the  heaviest  cross  of  all.  He  was  sincerely 
relieved  when  Clavering  took  himself  downstairs 
to  his  own  library  again. 

It  was  a  handsome  library,  and  quite  what  the 
library  of  a  senator,  if  not  a  statesman,  should  be. 
The  walls  were  lined  with  encyclopaedias,  his- 
tories, and  the  English  classics.  Clavering,  how- 
ever, was  a  student  of  far  more  interesting 
documents  than  any  ever  printed  in  a  book.  He 
had  studied  unceasingly  the  human  subject,  and 
knew  men  and  women  as  a  Greek  scholar  knows 
his  Sophocles.  This  knowledge  of  men  had  made 
him  not  only  dazzlingly  and  superbly  successful, 
but  even  happy  in  his  way.  The  most  saintly 
man  on  earth  might  have  envied  James  Clavering 
his  mind,  ever  at  ease ;  for  he  knew  no  morals, 
and  was  unmoral  rather  than  immoral. 

Two  things  only  in  life  disturbed  him.  One 
was  that  he  would  have  liked  to  get  rid  of  his 
[157] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

wife,  whom  he  had  married  when  he  was  barely 
twenty-one.  She  had  served  his  turn.  Although 
homely,  shapeless,  and  stupid  now,  she  had  made 
him  comfortable  —  in  the  days  when  his  miner's 
wages  barely  kept  a  humble  roof  over  his  head.  She 
had  brought  her  children  up  properly.  Claver- 
ing  had  enough  of  justice  in  him  not  to  hold  her 
accountable  for  the  fastness,  the  vagaries,  the  love 
of  splendor,  the  lack  of  principle,  that  made  his 
eldest  and  youngest  daughters  the  subject  of 
frequent  paragraphs  in  scandalous  newspapers, 
and  had  landed  one  in  the  divorce  court.  They 
were  like  him  —  so  Clavering  admitted  to  himself, 
without  a  blush.  His  one  fear  was  that  they 
would,  as  he  expressed  it,  "make  fools  of  them- 
selves." He  admired  chastity  in  women  and  even 
respected  it,  so  far  as  he  could  feel  respect  for 
anything ;  and  he  would,  if  he  could,  have  kept 
all  the  women  in  his  family  strictly  virtuous.  But 
he  never  was  quite  at  ease  about  either  Elise  or 
Lydia  ;  and  when  he  saw  the  simple  way  in  which 
Elise  had  slipped  off  the  matrimonial  fetters, 
Clavering  had  begun  to  fear  greatly  —  those  two 
girls  were  so  extremely  like  himself  ! 

He  knew  well  enough  from  whom  Reginald  in- 
herited his  temperament.    Mrs.  Clavering's  father 
had  been  a  weak,  well-meaning  Baptist  preacher, 
[158] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

and  Reginald  was  a  replica  of  him,  plus  a  univer- 
sity education  and  a  large  allowance  superadded. 
Where  Anne  came  in  Clavering  frankly  acknowl- 
edged himself  beaten.  She  inherited  his  own 
strong  will  and  her  mother's  gentleness  of  address. 
But  she  had  an  innate  delicacy,  a  singular  degree 
of  social  sense,  a  power  of  making  herself  felt  and 
respected,  that  Clavering  admired  but  the  origin 
of  which  he  could  not  trace.  She  was  the  one 
person  in  the  world  whom  he  feared  and  respected. 
It  was  due  to  her  that  the  Claverings  had  any 
real  social  status  whatever.  It  was  through  her, 
and  for  her  alone,  that  certain  honest,  dignified, 
and  punctilious  senators  and  public  officials  came 
to  the  grand  Clavering  dinners  and  musicals,  and 
allowed  their  wives  to  come.  It  was  Anne  who 
would  have  to  be  vanquished  when,  as  Clavering 
had  always  intended,  he  should  get  a  divorce  from 
his  wife  and  marry  again.  He  had  not  attempted 
this,  merely  because,  so  far,  the  women  who  would 
have  married  him  he  did  not  want  or  could  get  on 
easier  terms,  and  the  women  he  might  have  wanted 
would  not  have  him  at  any  price.  Anne  was 
known  as  her  mother's  champion,  and  Clavering 
knew  that  she  would  fight  the  divorce  with  all  the 
skill,  courage,  and  pertinacity  which,  as  Basker- 
ville  had  truly  said,  was  all  she  had  inherited  from 
[159] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

her  father.  She  had  in  her,  disguised  by  much 
suavity  and  sweetness,  a  touch  of  aggressiveness, 
a  noble  wilfulness  that  would  not  be  reasoned 
away.  Clavering  knew  that  the  tussle  of  his  life 
would  come  when  the  divorce  was  seriously 
mooted  ;  but  he  was  not  the  less  ready  for  the 
tussle. 

The  first  sight  of  Elizabeth  Darrell  had  im- 
pressed him  wonderfully,  and  the  second  vision  of 
her  had  determined  him  to  renew  his  acquaintance 
with  General  Brandon  ;  and  while  he  was  turning 
the  mode  of  this  over  in  his  mind  he  was  sum- 
moned to  luncheon.  At  luncheon  all  of  the 
family  assembled  —  Elise  and  Lydia  in  elaborate 
negligees,  Anne  simply  but  properly  dressed. 
She  sat  next  her  mother  at  the  table  and  was  that 
poor  creature's  only  outspoken  champion. 

"  So  you  had  a  nice  morning,  with  the  psalm- 
singing  and  all  that,"  said  Elise  to  Anne. 

"  Very  nice,"  replied  Anne.  "  Mamma  seemed 
to  enjoy  it  very  much." 

"  We  had  a  nice  morning,  too,"  replied  Elise. 
"  The  Brentwood-Baldwins  glared  at  us  as  we 
went  into  church  ;  they  will  never  forgive  us  for 
getting  that  pew  in  the  middle  aisle,  so  close  to 
the  President's.  Then,  after  church,  Count 
Rosalka  asked  to  walk  home  with  me.  Lydia 
[160] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

got  Laurison,  the  new  British  third  secretary; 
so  we  sent  the  carriage  on  and  walked  out 
Connecticut  Avenue  with  all  the  Seventh  Street 
shopkeepers.  It  was  very  amusing,  though." 

"  It  must  have  been,"  said  Clavering,  gravely. 
"  You  must  have  recalled  the  time  when  you 
would  have  thought  yourself  as  rich  as  Pierpont 
Morgan  and  Rockefeller  combined  if  you  had  been 
as  well  dressed  as  a  Seventh  Street  shopkeeper's 
daughter.  It  was  only  twelve  years  ago,  you 
remember,  since  I  struck  pay  dirt  in  mines  and 
politics." 

iElise  and  Lydia  both  smiled  pleasantly.  They 
were  their  father's  own  daughters,  and  along  with 
many  of  his  vices  they  inherited  his  superb  good 
humor,  which  never  gave  way  except  to  a  pre- 
concerted burst  of  imposing  wrath. 

"  I  remember  those  days  quite  well,"  said  Anne. 
Her  voice,  as  well  as  her  looks,  was  quite  different 
from  her  sisters'.  Instead  of  their  rich  and 
sensuous  tones,  beautiful  like  their  father's, 
Anne's  voice  had  a  dovelike  quality  of  cooing 
softness ;  but  she  could  always  make  herself 
heard.  "  I  remember,"  she  continued,  touch- 
ing her  mother's  coarse  hand  outspread  on  the 
table,  "when  mamma  used  to  make  our  gowns, 
and  we  looked  quite  as  nice  as  the  girls  who 
[161] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

could  afford  to  have  their  clothes  made  by  a 
dressmaker." 

"  Them  was  happy  days,"  said  Mrs.  Clavering. 
It  was  her  only  remark  during  luncheon. 

They  talked  of  their  plans  for  the  coming  week, 
as  people  do  to  whom  pleasure  and  leisure  are 
new  and  intoxicating  things.  Anne  was  plied 
with  questions  about  Mrs.  Luttrell's  dinner.  She 
told  freely  all  about  it,  being  secretive  only  con- 
cerning Baskerville,  merely  mentioning  that  he 
was  present. 

"  A  more  toploftical,  stuck-up  F.  F.  V.  —  or 
F.  F.  M.,  I  suppose  he  is  —  I  never  saw  than  this 
same  Mr.  Baskerville,  and  as  dull  as  ditchwater 
besides,"  said  Lydia. 

Here  Reginald  spoke.  "  Mr.  Baskerville  is 
very  highly  esteemed  by  the  bishop  of  the  diocese," 
he  said. 

"And  by  people  of  a  good  deal  more  brains 
than  the  bishop  of  the  diocese,"  added  Clavering. 
"  Baskerville  is  one  of  the  brainiest  men  of  his  age 
I  ever  knew.  He  is  fighting  me  in  this  K.  F.  R. 
business  ;  but  all  the  same  I  have  a  high  opinion 
of  his  gray  matter,  and  I  wish  you  two  girls  — 
Elise  and  Lydia  —  knew  men  like  Baskerville 
instead  of  foreign  rapscallions  and  fortune-hunters 
like  Rosalka.  And  I  wish  you  went  to  dinners 
[162] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

such  as  Anne  went  to  last  night,  instead  of 
scampering  over  the  town  to  all  sorts  of  larky 
places  with  all  sorts  of  larky  people." 

To  this  Lydia  replied.  So  far,  she  had  achieved 
neither  marriage  nor  divorce,  but  she  was  not 
averse  to  either.  "  I  think  the  dinners  Anne 
goes  to  must  be  precious  dull.  Now,  our  men 
and  our  parties,  whatever  they  are,  they  aren't 
dull.  I  never  laughed  so  much  in  my  life  as  I 
did  at  Rosalka's  stories." 

Clavering's  face  grew  black.  He  was  no  better 
than  he  should  be  himself,  and  ethically  he  made 
no  objection  to  his  daughters'  amusing  themselves 
in  any  way  but  one ;  but  old  prejudices  and 
superstitions  made  him  delicate  on  the  one  point 
upon  which  he  suspected  two  of  his  daughters 
were  the  least  squeamish.  He  said  nothing,  how- 
ever, nor  did  Anne  or  Reginald  ;  it  was  a  subject 
none  of  them  cared  to  discuss.  When  luncheon 
was  over,  Mrs.  Clavering  and  Anne  made  ready 
for  their  early  Sunday  afternoon  walk  —  a  time  to 
which  Mrs.  Clavering  looked  forward  all  the 
week  and  with  which  Anne  never  allowed  any  of 
her  own  engagements  to  interfere. 

Meanwhile  Clavering  himself,  interested  for  the 
first  time  in  the  tall,  shabby  house  across  the  way, 
walked  out  upon  the  broad  stone  steps  of  his  own 
[163] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

place  and  watched  the  windows  opposite,  hoping 
for  a  glimpse  of  Elizabeth  Darrell's  face.  While 
he  stood  there  smoking  and  apparently  engaged 
in  the  harmless  enjoyment  of  a  lovely  autumn 
afternoon,  Richard  Baskerville  approached.  Bas- 
kerville  denied  himself  the  pleasure  of  seeking 
Anne  in  her  own  home,  but  he  often  found  him- 
self, without  his  own  volition,  in  the  places  where 
he  would  be  likely  to  meet  her,  and  so  he  was 
walking  along  the  street  in  which  she  lived.  See- 
ing Clavering  on  the  steps  Baskerville  would  have 
passed  with  a  cool  nod,  but  Clavering  stopped 
him ;  and  the  younger  man,  thinking  Anne  Clav- 
ering might  be  within  sight  or  might  appear,  com- 
promised with  his  conscience  and  entered  into 
conversation  with  Clavering.  It  was  always  an 
effort  on  Baskerville's  part  to  avoid  Clavering, 
whose  extraordinary  charm  of  manner  and  person- 
ality was  a  part  of  his  capital.  Baskerville,  deep 
in  the  study  of  Clavering's  career,  felt  a  genuine 
curiosity  about  the  man  and  how  he  did  things 
and  what  he  really  thought  of  himself  and  his 
own  doings.  He  reckoned  Clavering  to  be  a 
colossal  and  very  attractive  scoundrel,  whom  he 
was  earnestly  seeking  to  destroy ;  and  his  rela- 
tions were  further  complicated  with  Clavering  by 
the  fact  that  Anne  Clavering  was  —  a  very  inter- 
[164] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

esting  woman.  This  Baskerville  admitted  to 
himself  ;  he  had  got  that  far  on  the  road  to  love. 

The  Senator,  with  the  brilliant  smile  which 
made  him  handsomer  than  ever,  said  to  Basker- 
ville, "  We  may  as  well  enjoy  the  privilege  of 
speaking  before  you  do  me  up  in  the  matter  of 
the  K.  F.  R.  land  grants." 

The  younger  man  cleverly  avoided  shaking 
hands  with  Clavering,  but  replied,  also  smiling, 
"  Your  attorneys  say  we  shan't  be  able  to  '  do  you 
up,'  Senator." 

"I  hope  they're  right.  I  swear,  in  that  busi- 
ness the  amount  of  lying  and  perjury,  if  placed  on 
end,  would  reach  to  the  top  of  the  Washington 
Monument.  Have  a  cigar  ?  " 

Such  indeed  was  Baskerville's  own  view  of  the 
lying  and  perjury,  but  he  opined  that  it  was  all  on 
Senator  Clavering's  side,  and  he  was  trying  to 
prove  it.  He  got  out  of  taking  one  of  Clavering's 
cigars  —  for  he  was  nice  upon  points  of  honor  — 
by  taking  a  cigarette  out  of  his  case. 

"  I  don't  know  what  you  youngsters  are  coming 
to,"  said  Clavering,  as  he  smoked.  "Cigarettes 
and  vermouth,  and  that  sort  of  thing,  instead  of  a 
good  strong  cigar  and  four  fingers  of  whiskey." 

"  I  was  on  the  foot-ball  team  at  the  university 
for  three  terms,  and  we  had  to  lead  lives  like 
[165] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

boarding-school  misses,"  replied  Baskerville,  toy- 
ing with  his  cigarette.  "Our  coach  was  about 
the  stiffest  man  against  whiskey  and  cigars  I  ever 
knew  —  and  used  to  preach  to  us  seven  days  in 
the  week  that  a  couple  of  cigars  a  day  and  four 
fingers  of  whiskey  would  shortly  land  any  fellow 
at  the  undertaker's.  I  fell  from  grace,  it  is  true, 
directly  I  was  graduated ;  but  that  coach's  grew- 
some  predictions  have  stuck  to  me  like  the  shirt 
of  Nemesis,  as  your  colleague,  Senator  Jephson, 
said  the  other  day  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate." 

"  Jephson's  an  ass.  He  is  the  sort  of  man  that 
would  define  a  case  of  mixed  property  as  a  suit 
for  a  mule." 

"  Hardly.  And  he's  an  honest  old  blunder- 
buss." 

"  Still,  he's  an  ass,  as  I  say.  His  honesty 
doesn't  prevent  that." 

"  Well,  yes,  in  a  way  it  does.  I'm  not  a  pro- 
fessional moralist,  but  I  don't  believe  there  is  any 
really  good  substitute  for  honesty."  Then  Bas- 
kerville suddenly  turned  red ;  the  discussion  of 
honesty  with  a  man  whose  dishonesty  he  firmly 
believed  in,  and  was  earnestly  trying  to  prove,  was 
a  blunder  into  which  he  did  not  often  fall.  Clav- 
ering,  who  saw  everything,  noted  the  other's  flush, 
understood  it  perfectly,  and  smiled  in  appreciation 
[166] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

of  the  joke.  Baskerville  did  not  propose  to  em- 
phasize his  mistake  by  running  away,  and  was 
prepared  to  stay  some  minutes  longer,  when  the 
entrance  doors  were  swung  open  by  the  gorgeous 
footman,  and  Mrs.  Clavering,  leaning  upon  Anne's 
arm,  appeared  for  a  walk.  When  he  saw  his  wife, 
Clavering's  face  grew  dark ;  that  old  woman,  with 
her  bad  grammar  and  her  big  hands,  was  always 
in  his  way.  He  said  good  morning  abruptly  and 
went  indoors  at  once. 

Anne  greeted  Baskerville  with  a  charming 
smile,  and  introduced  him  at  once  to  her  mother. 
Something  in  his  manner  to  Mrs.  Clavering  re- 
vealed the  antique  respect  he  had  for  every  de- 
cent woman,  no  matter  how  unattractive  she 
might  be.  He  assisted  Mrs.  Clavering  down  the 
great  stone  steps  as  if  she  were  a  young  and  pretty 
girl  instead  of  a  lumbering,  ignorant,  elderly 
woman ;  and  Mrs.  Clavering  found  courage  to 
address  him,  a  thing  she  rarely  did  to  strangers. 

"  I  guess,"  she  said  diffidently,  "  you've  got  an 
old  mother  of  your  own  that  you  help  up  and 
down  —  you  do  it  so  easy." 

"  No,  I  wish  I  had,"  answered  Baskerville,  with 

a  kindness  in  his  voice  that  both  the  old  woman 

and  the  young  felt.     "  My  mother  has  been  dead 

a  long  time ;  but  I  have  a  fine  old  aunt,  Mrs.  Lut- 

[167] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

trell,  who  makes  me  fetch  and  carry  like  an  ex- 
pressman's horse,  and  then  she  says  I  am  not  half 
so  attentive  to  her  as  I  ought  to  be.  Perhaps 
Miss  Clavering  has  told  you  about  her  —  I  had 
the  pleasure  of  dining  with  Miss  Clavering  at  my 
aunt's  last  night." 

"  Yes,  she  did,  and  she  told  me  you  were  all 
real  nice,"  answered  Mrs.  Clavering  —  and  was 
appalled  at  her  own  daring. 

Anne  and  Baskerville  talked  about  the  dinner, 
as  they  walked  along  the  sunny,  quiet  street- 
Anne  had  enjoyed  every  moment  spent  in  Mrs. 
Luttrell's  house,  and  said  so.  Mrs.  Clavering 
walked  with  difficulty,  and  the  young  man's  arm 
at  the  street  crossings  was  a  real  assistance  to 
her ;  and  without  talking  down  to  Mrs.  Clavering 
or  embarrassing  her  by  direct  remarks,  he  skilfully 
included  her  in  the  conversation. 

Mrs.  Clavering  felt  increasingly  comfortable. 
Here  was  a  man  who  did  not  scorn  a  woman 
because  she  was  old  and  plain.  For  once  the 
poor  woman  did  not  feel  in  the  way  with  another 
person  besides  Anne.  She  ventured  several  re- 
marks, such  as :  "  People  ought  to  be  kind  to 
poor  dumb  brutes,  who  can't  tell  what  ails  them," 
and  "  Washington  is  a  great  deal  prettier  for  hav- 
ing so  many  trees,  because  trees  make  any  place 
[168] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

pretty,"  —  to  all  of  which  Baskerville  listened 
with  pleasant  courtesy.  He  began  to  see  in  this 
ordinary,  uneducated  woman  a  certain  hint  of 
attractiveness  in  her  gentleness  of  voice  and  soft- 
ness of  eyes  that  were  reflected  and  intensified 
in  the  slim  and  graceful  daughter  by  her  side. 
Anne  turned  her  soft,  expressive  eyes  —  her  only 
real  beauty  —  on  Baskerville  with  a  look  of  grati- 
tude in  them.  Her  life  at  home  was  one  long 
fight  for  the  happiness  and  dignity  of  her  mother, 
for  whom  no  one  of  her  family  had  the  least  re- 
spect, except  herself  and  her  brother  Reginald; 
and  Reginald  was  but  a  poor  creature  in  many 
ways.  If  Baskerville  had  sat  up  all  night  for  a 
month,  trying  to  devise  a  plan  to  ingratiate  him- 
self with  Anne  Clavering,  he  could  not  have  done 
it  better  than  by  his  courtesy  to  her  mother.  And 
he,  appreciating  the  strong  affection,  the  courage, 
the  absence  of  false  pride,  the  unselfishness,  of  Anne 
Clavering  in  this  particular,  admired  her  the  more. 
As  they  walked  slowly  along  and  talked,  a 
kind  of  intimacy  seemed  to  spring  into  being 
between  them.  Gratitude  is  a  strong  incentive 
to  regard  on  both  sides,  and  Baskerville's  atti- 
tude toward  Mrs.  Clavering  touched  Anne  to 
the  heart.  Their  objective  point  was  Dupont 
Circle,  which  at  that  hour  was  tolerably  free  from 
[169] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

the  colored  gentry  and  the  baby  carriages  which 
make  it  populous  eighteen  hours  out  of  the 
twenty-four.  But  Mrs.  Clavering  was  destined 
to  receive  further  distinguished  attentions  dur- 
ing that  episode  of  the  walk.  When  she  was 
seated  comfortably  on  a  bench  Baskerville  pro- 
posed to  Anne  that  he  show  her,  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Circle,  a  silver  maple  tree  in  great 
autumnal  glory. 

"Now  do  go,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Clavering. 
"I'd  like  to  set  here  awhile.  Do,  Mr.  Basker- 
ville, take  her  off  —  she  ain't  left  me  an  hour 
this  day,  and  she  oughter  have  a  little  pleasure." 

"  Come,  obey  your  mother,"  Baskerville  said  ; 
and  Anne,  smiling,  walked  off  with  him. 

Mrs.  Clavering,  good  soul,  was  like  other 
mothers,  and  as  her  darling  child  went  off  with 
Baskerville  she  thought :  "  How  nice  them  two 
look  together !  And  he  is  such  a  civil-spoken, 
sensible  young  man.  Anne  deserves  a  good  hus- 
band, and  if  —  " 

This  train  of  thought  was  interrupted  by  Gen- 
eral Brandon.  He,  too,  after  his  luncheon,  was 
out  for  a  Sunday  airing,  and  passing  the  bench 
on  which  Mrs.  Clavering  sat,  the  good  woman, 
with  new-found  courage,  looked  up  at  him  and 
actually  ventured  upon  a  timid  bow.  She  had 
[170] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

recognized  him  from  the  first  time  she  had  seen 
him,  when  she  moved  into  their  new  and  splendid 
house ;  and  she  had  a  perfectly  clear  recollection 
of  the  old  sutler  days,  when  General  Brandon  was 
a  handsome  young  captain,  who  always  had  a 
polite  word  for  the  sutler's  wife.  But  she  had 
never  before,  in  the  two  years  they  had  lived 
opposite  each  other,  had  the  courage  to  speak  to 
him.  Her  success  with  Baskerville  emboldened 
her,  and  as  General  Brandon  made  her  an  elabo- 
rate, old-fashioned  bow  Mrs.  Clavering  said :  — 

"  This  used  to  be  Cap'n  Brandon  —  a  long 
time  ago,  just  before  the  war  broke  out." 

"  Yes,  madam,"  replied  General  Brandon ;  "  and 
you,  I  believe,  are  Mrs.  Clavering.  I  remember 
quite  well  when  Mr.  Clavering  brought  you,  a 
blooming  bride,  to  the  post." 

Mrs.  Clavering  sighed.  She  was  so  lonely  in 
the  big  house,  so  continually  snubbed  by  her  hus- 
band, by  her  daughters  Elise  and  Lydia,  by  the 
uppish  footman  and  the  giggling  maids ;  she  was 
so  cut  off  from  everything  she  had  known  before, 
that  the  sight  of  persons  connected  with  those 
early  days  was  like  water  in  the  desert  to  her. 
She  smiled  a  deprecating  smile,  and  answered: 
"  I've  seen  you  on  the  streets  often  enough.  You 
live  opposite  our  house,  don't  you?" 
[171] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  Yes,"  said  General  Brandon.  Then  Mrs. 
Clavering  made  a  faint  indication  that  he  should 
sit  down,  and  he  placed  himself  on  the  bench 
by  her  side.  "  I  recognized  both  you  and  Sena- 
tor Clavering,"  he  went  on,  "but  as  neither  of 
you  showed  any  recollection  of  me  I  hesitated 
to  speak." 

Mrs.  Clavering  sighed.  "You  are  the  first 
person  since  I  came  to  Washington  that  I  ever 
seen  as  far  back  as  them  days  at  the  army  post." 

General  Brandon,  the  most  chivalrous  of  men, 
saw  in  Mrs.  Clavering  the  timid  longing  to  talk 
about  old  days  and  old  ways,  and  he  himself  had 
a  fondness  for  reminiscences ;  so  the  pair  of  old 
fogies  entered  into  talk,  feeling  a  greater  degree 
of  acquaintanceship  in  meeting  after  that  long 
stretch  of  years  than  they  had  ever  known  be- 
fore. When  Anne  and  Baskerville  returned, 
twenty  minutes  later,  quite  an  active  conversation 
was  going  on. 

"  Anne,  my  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Clavering,  actually 
in  a  self-possessed  manner,  "  this  is  General  Bran- 
don, who  lives  opposite  our  house.  I  knew  him 
in  them  old  times  at  the  army  post  ;  and  he's  got 
a  daughter,  a  widder,  come  home  from  England, 
to  live  with  him.  Anne,  you  must  go  and  call  on 
her." 

[172] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  I  shall  with  much  pleasure,"  replied  Anne,  be- 
stowing on  General  Brandon  her  charming  smile. 
Then,  after  a  little  more  talk,  it  was  time  to 
return.  General  Brandon  gallantly  offered  Mrs. 
Clavering  his  arm,  and  the  poor  lady,  embarrassed 
but  pleased,  was  escorted  with  courtly  grace  to 
her  door.  Anne  and  Baskerville  had  meanwhile 
made  vast  strides  in  intimacy.  It  was  not,  how- 
ever, enough  for  Anne  to  repeat  her  invitation  to 
call,  but  Mrs.  Clavering,  when  she  arrived  at  the 
door  which  was  by  courtesy  called  hers,  plucked 
up  extraordinary  courage  and  said  :  — 

"  I  hope,  Mr.  Baskerville,  you  will  favor  us  with 
your  company  on  Thursday,  which  is  our  receiv- 
ing day.  General  Brandon  has  promised  to  come, 
and  I'll  be  real  disappointed  if  you  don't  come, 
too." 

It  was  the  first  invitation  that  Mrs.  Clavering 
had  ever  given  on  her  own  initiative,  and  she 
gave  it  so  diffidently,  and  in  such  simple  good 
faith,  that  a  man  would  have  been  a  brute  to 
decline  it.  So  Baskerville  accepted  it  with  thanks, 
wondering  meanwhile  whether  he  were  not  a  rascal 
in  so  doing.  But  he  wanted  very  much  to  see 
Anne  Clavering  as  often  as  he  could,  and  the 
Montague  and  Capulet  act  came  to  him  quite 
naturally  and  agreeably  —  the  more  so  when  he 
[173] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

saw  the  gleam  of  gratification  in  Anne's  eyes  at 
his  acceptance.  She  said  simply  :  — 

"  I  shall  be  glad  to  see  you  ;  "  and  then,  turning 
to  General  Brandon,  she  added,  "  We  shall,  I  hope, 
have  the  pleasure  then  of  meeting  Mrs.  Darrell." 

"  My  dear  young  lady,  you  are  most  kind," 
answered  General  Brandon,  "  but  my  daughter  is 
so  lately  widowed  —  not  yet  a  year  and  a  half  — 
that  I  feel  sure  it  will  be  quite  impossible  to  her 
feelings  for  her  to  appear  at  all  in  society  now. 
Nevertheless,  I  shall  give  her  your  kind  invita- 
tion, and  she  will  be  most  gratified.  I  shall  do 
myself  the  honor  and  pleasure  of  attending  your 
Thursday  reception." 

And  then  they  parted,  Anne  and  Baskerville 
each  reckoning  that  day  to  have  been  one  of  the 
pleasantest  of  their  lives,  and  wondering  when 
they  should  have  the  good  fortune  to  meet  in  that 
sweet,  companionable  manner  again. 


[174] 


Chapter  Ten 

AT  dinner  that  night  General  Brandon  told 
Elizabeth  about  his  meeting  with  Mrs.  Clavering, 
and  the  renewal  of  their  acquaintance.  "  The 
poor  lady  seemed  much  pleased  at  meeting  some 
one  associated  with  her  former  life,"  said  the  Gen- 
eral. "  She  invited  me  to  call  on  Thursday, 
which  is  their  first  reception  day  of  the  season, 
and  especially  urged  that  you  should  come.  I 
believe  their  receptions  are  large  and  brilliant  — 
the  newspapers  are  always  full  of  them  ;  so  I  told 
her  that  owing  to  your  very  recent  mourning  it 
would  be  impossible  for  you  to  go  to  any  large  or 
gay  entertainment.  I  have  no  doubt  Sara  Lut- 
trell  will  ask  you  to  many  of  her  parties,  —  she 
keeps  a  very  gay  house,  —  and  it  is  a  source  of  the 
keenest  regret  to  me  that  you  cannot  for  the 
present  accept  invitations.  But  another  winter  I 
shall  hope,  my  dear  child,  that  you  will  have  the 
spirit  to  enter  once  more  into  the  society  you  are 
so  admirably  fitted  to  adorn." 

Good  General  Brandon  was  quite  unconscious 
that  in  the  society  to  which  Elizabeth  had  been 
[175] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

long  accustomed  a  year  was  considered  the  period 
of  a  widow's  mourning.  He  never  dreamed  for  one 
moment  that  she  could  have  been  induced  to  go  into 
society  at  that  time.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was 
the  one  thing  which  Elizabeth  really  hoped  might 
rouse  her  from  her  torpor  of  mind  and  heart  into 
which  she  had  sunk  in  the  last  few  months.  She 
had  a  good  and  comprehensive  mind,  which  had 
been  much  improved  by  reading  under  Pelham's 
direction.  Then  had  come  that  brilliant  year  in 
London,  in  which  she  had  really  seen  the  best 
English  society  and  had  liked  it,  as  every  one  must 
who  knows  it.  During  her  whole  married  life  she 
had  taken  part  in  the  continual  round  of  small 
gayeties  which  prevail  at  army  posts  all  over  the 
world.  Her  belle-ship  had  made  this  particularly 
gratifying  and  delightful  to  her.  Society  had 
become  a  habit,  although  very  far  from  a  passion, 
with  her,  and  she  had  expected  to  return  to  it,  as 
one  resumes  one's  daily  habits. 

She  had  taken  a  strange  interest  in  the  Clav- 
erings  from  the  very  beginning  —  they  consti- 
tuted her  first  impressions  of  Washington;  and 
she  would  have  found  some  diversion  from  her 
sad  and  wearying  thoughts  in  Mrs.  Luttrell's  brill- 
iant and  interesting  house.  But  it  was  impossi- 
ble for  her  to  go  against  her  father's  implied 
[176] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

ideas  of  propriety.  He  had  always  assumed  that 
she  was  properly  and  dutifully  heartbroken  at  her 
husband's  death.  She  did  indeed  mourn  good, 
brave,  honest,  stupid  Jack  Darrell  as  a  woman 
mourns  a  husband  for  whom  she  feels  gratitude 
and  tenderness,  without  being  in  the  least  in  love 
with  him;  all  the  sentiment  which  belongs  to  love 
she  had  secretly  and  hopelessly  given  to  Pelham. 
She  often  thought  that  if  she  had  not  been  so 
young,  so  ignorant,  she  never  would  have  married 
Darrell. 

"I  think  you  should  force  yourself,  however 
painful  it  may  be  to  your  feelings,  to  go  to  see 
Sara  Luttrell  some  day  when  she  is  not  formally 
receiving,"  said  General  Brandon,  thinking  he  was 
proposing  a  tremendous  sacrifice  to  Elizabeth  ; 
and  he  felt  quite  triumphant  when  she  agreed 
to  go. 

When  the  Thursday  afternoon  came,  there  was 
no  need  to  tell  Elizabeth  that  the  Clavering  recep- 
tions were  large  and  brilliant.  By  four  o'clock 
carriages  came  pouring  into  the  street,  and  by 
five  there  was  almost  an  impasse.  Great  numbers 
of  stylish  men,  both  foreigners  and  Americans, 
passed  in  and  out  the  splendid  doors. 

While  Elizabeth  was  watching  this  procession 
with  curious  interest,  Mrs.  Luttrell's  great  old- 
[177] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

fashioned  coach,  with  the  long-tailed  black  horses, 
stopped  before  the  tall,  shabby  house,  and  Serena 
brought  up  Mrs.  Luttrell's  and  Baskerville's  cards. 
Mrs.  Luttrell,  although  militant,  was  not  the 
sort  of  woman  to  hit  another  woman  when  she 
was  down,  and  was  most  gracious  when  Elizabeth 
appeared.  The  sight  of  the  dingy  drawing-room, 
of  Elizabeth's  pallor  and  evident  signs  of  stress 
and  trial,  touched  Mrs.  Luttrell.  She  mentioned 
to  Elizabeth  that  a  card  would  be  sent  her  for  a 
large  dinner  which  she  was  giving  within  a  fort- 
night, and  when  Elizabeth  gently  declined  Mrs. 
Luttrell  was  really  sorry.  Baskerville  was  sin- 
cerely cordial.  He  had  liked  Elizabeth  as  a  girl, 
and  her  forlornness  now  touched  him  as  it  did 
Mrs.  Luttrell. 

When  the  visit  was  over  and  they  were  once 
more  out  of  the  house,  Mrs.  Luttrell  exclaimed: 
"  That's  Dick  Brandon's  doings  —  that  poor  Eliza- 
beth not  going  to  a  place  and  moping  in  that 
hole  of  a  house.  If  she  would  but  go  about  a  bit, 
and  leave  her  card  at  the  British  Embassy,  where 
she  would  certainly  be  invited,  she  could  see  some- 
thing of  society  and  recover  her  spirits  and  good 
looks.  By  the  way,  I  think  she's  really  more  entic- 
ing in  her  pallor  and  her  black  gown  than  when 
she  was  in  the  flush  of  her  beauty.  Of  course  she 
[178] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

looks  much  older.     Now,  as  I'm  going   into  the 
Claverings'  I  suppose  you  will  leave  me." 

Baskerville,  with  a  hangdog  look,  replied,  "  I'm 
going  into  the  Claverings',  too."  Mrs.  Luttrell's 
handsome  mouth  came  open,  and  her  ermine  cape 
fell  from  her  shoulders  without  her  even  so  much 
as  knowing  it.  "  Yes,"  said  Baskerville,  assum- 
ing a  bullying  air,  now  that  the  cat  was  out  of  the 
bag,  "  Mrs.  Clavering  asked  me  last  Sunday,  and  I 
accepted." 

"  Where  on  earth,  Richard  Bas  —  " 

"  Did  I  see  Mrs.  Clavering  ?  I  met  her  out 
walking  with  Miss  Clavering.  Mrs.  Clavering  is 
a  most  excellent  woman  —  quiet  and  unobtru- 
sive —  and  I  swear  there  is  something  of  her  in 
Miss  Clavering." 

"  Richard  Baskerville,  you  are  in  love  with 
Anne  Clavering  !  I  know  it ;  I  feel  it." 

"  Don't  be  a  fool,  Sara  Luttrell.  Because  I  hap- 
pen to  pay  a  visit  at  a  house  where  I  have  been 
asked  and  could  have  gone  a  year  ago,  you  at 
once  discover  a  mare's  nest.  That's  Sara  Luttrell 
all  over." 

"  And  what  becomes  of  the  doubtful  propriety 
of  your  going    to    Senator    Clavering's    house? 
And  suppose  you  succeed  in  driving  him  out  of 
public  life,  as  you  are  trying  to  do  ?  " 
[179] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

"  I  swear  you  are  the  most  provoking  old 
woman  in  Washington.  Hold  your  tongue  and 
come  along  with  your  dutiful  nephew." 

Grasping  her  firmly  by  the  arm,  Baskerville 
marched  Mrs.  Luttrell  up  the  broad  stone  steps  of 
the  Clavering  house.  The  splendid  doors  were 
opened  noiselessly  by  gorgeous  footmen  who 
looked  like  the  prize-winners  at  a  chrysanthemum 
show.  The  entrance  was  magnificent,  and  through 
the  half-drawn  silken  draperies  of  the  wide  door- 
ways they  could  see  the  whole  superb  suite  of 
rooms  opening  upon  the  large  Moorish  hall. 
Great  masses  of  flowers  were  everywhere,  and  the 
mellow  glow  of  wax  lights  and  tinted  lamp  globes 
made  the  winter  twilight  softly  radiant. 

Half  a  dozen  butterfly  debutantes  were  serving 
tea  in  the  huge  dining  room,  furnished  with  price- 
less teak- wood  and  black  oak,  bright  with  pictures 
and  mirrors,  a  magnificent  Turkish  carpet  on  the 
parquet  floor  and  chandeliers  from  a  royal  palace 
lighting  the  dim  splendor  of  the  room.  Here, 
brilliant  with  candelabra,  was  set  out  a  great 
table,  from  which  an  expensive  collation  was 
served  by  more  gorgeous  footmen.  This  was 
the  doing  of  Elise  and  Lydia,  who  overruled 
Anne's  desire  for  a  simple  tea-table  set  in  the 
library.  There,  however,  a  great  gold  and  silver 
[180] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

bowl  was  constantly  replenished  with  champagne 
punch,  and  over  this  Elise  and  Lydia  presided, 
much  preferring  the  champagne  bowl  to  the  tea- 
table. 

The  library  was  thronged  with  men,  old  and 
young,  native  and  foreign.  Elise  and  Lydia, 
their  handsome  faces  flushed  and  smiling,  their 
elaborate  gowns  iridescent  with  gold  and  silver 
embroidery  and  spangles  sweeping  the  floor, 
laughed,  talked,  and  flirted  to  their  hearts'  con- 
tent. They  also  drank  punch  with  a  great  many 
men,  who  squeezed  their  hands  on  the  sly,  looked 
meaningly  into  their  large,  dark  eyes,  and  always 
went  away  laughing. 

Mrs.  Luttrell,  escorted  by  Baskerville,  and 
meeting  acquaintances  at  every  turn,  entered  the 
great  drawing-room,  which  was  a  symphony  in 
green  and  gold.  Near  the  door  Anne  Clavering, 
in  a  simple  gray  gown,  stood  by  her  mother,  who 
was  seated.  Anne  received  the  guests,  and  then 
introduced  them  to  Mrs.  Clavering,  who  made 
the  pretence  of  receiving,  looking  the  picture  of 
misery  meanwhile.  The  poor  soul  would  much 
rather  have  remained  upstairs  ;  but  on  this  point 
Anne  was  inexorable — her  mother  must  show 
herself  in  her  own  drawing-room.  A  handsome 
black  gown,  appropriate  to  an  elderly  lady, 
[181] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

showed  Mrs.  Clavering  at  her  best,  and  Anne, 
with  perfect  tact,  grace,  and  patience,  silently 
demanded  and  received  for  her  mother  the  respect 
which  was  due  her  and  which  there  was  occasion- 
ally some  difficulty  in  exacting.  As  Anne  caught 
sight  of  Mrs.  Luttrell,  she  smiled  with  obvious 
pleasure ;  but  on  seeing  Baskerville  her  face 
lighted  up  in  a  way  which  by  no  means  escaped 
Mrs.  Luttrell's  sharp  eyes. 

Mrs.  Clavering  was  nearly  frightened  out  of 
her  life  on  the  rare  occasions  when  the  redoubt- 
able Mrs.  Luttrell  called,  but  on  this  afternoon 
Mrs.  Luttrell  was  as  soft  as  milk  and  as 
sweet  as  honey  itself.  Mrs.  Clavering  was  not 
the  least  afraid  of  Baskerville,  and  said  to  him 
earnestly,  as  he  took  her  hand,  "I'm  real  glad 
to  see  you." 

"And  I  am  very  glad  to  be  able  to  come," 
answered  Baskerville.  Then,  seating  himself  by 
her  side,  he  began  to  talk  to  her  so  gently  on 
subjects  the  poor  lady  was  interested  in  that  she 
was  more  delighted  with  him  than  ever.  A  soft 
flush  came  into  Anne's  delicate  cheeks ;  she  ap- 
preciated the  sweet  and  subtle  flattery  in  Basker- 
ville's  attitude.  It  was  not  interest  in  Mrs. 
Clavering's  conversation,  nor  even  the  pity  he 
might  have  felt  for  her  forlorn  condition,  which 
[182] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

induced  him  to  spend  twenty  minutes  of  his  visit 
in  talking  to  her. 

Meantime  the  dusk  was  deepening.  Many 
visitors  were  departing  and  few  coming.  Mrs. 
Luttrell  was  entertaining  a  select  coterie  of  men 
around  the  large  fireplace  at  the  other  end  of  the 
room,  and  Baskerville  was  the  only  person  left 
near  Anne  and  Mrs.  Clavering. 

"  Will  you  be  kind  enough,"  he  said  to  Anne, 
*'  to  go  with  me  to  get  a  cup  of  tea  ?  I  see  a 
table  in  yonder,  but  I  am  afraid  of  so  many 
young  girls  at  once.  I  think  I  can  count  six  of 
them.  Now  if  you  will  go  with  me,  I  shall  feel 
as  brave  as  a  lion." 

The  temptation  was  strong,  but  Anne  looked 
down  at  her  mother.  Apprehension  was  written 
on  Mrs.  Clavering's  simple,  homely  face  at  the 
notion  of  being  left  alone. 

"  Why  can't  Mr.  Baskerville  have  his  tea  with 
me  ? "  said  she.  "  There  ain't  any  more  folks 
coming.  Make  Peer  bring  a  table  here,  Anne, 
and  we'll  have  it  comfortable  together." 

"  Yes,"  Baskerville  added,  drawing  up  a  chair. 
"  Mrs.  Clavering  is  far  more  amiable  and  hospita- 
ble than  you.  I  am  sure  you  would  never  have 
thought  of  so  kind  a  solution." 

Anne,  with  a  happy  smile,  gave  Pierre  the 
[183] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

order,  and  in  a  minute  they  were  sitting  about 
a  little  table,  with  an  opportunity  for  a  few  min- 
utes' talk  at  a  moderate  pitch  of  voice,  differing 
from  those  hurried,  merry  meetings  in  a  crowd 
of  laughing,  talking,  moving  people  which  usu- 
ally constitute  a  Washington  call. 

While  they  were  sitting  there,  all  three  enjoy- 
ing themselves  and  Mrs.  Clavering  not  the  least 
of  the  three,  a  belated  caller  was  announced, 
General  Brandon.  The  General  was  in  his  Sun- 
day frock  coat,  which  had  seen  good  service,  and 
his  silk  hat,  which  belonged  by  rights  on  the 
retired  list ;  but  each  was  carefully  brushed 
and  clearly  belonged  to  a  gentleman.  General 
Brandon  himself,  handsome,  soldierly,  his  white 
mustache  and  hair  neatly  clipped,  was  grace,  ele- 
gance, and  amiability  personified.  His  head  was 
none  of  the  best,  but  for  beauty,  courage,  and 
gentleness  he  was  unmatched.  Anne  received 
him  with  more  than  her  usual  cordiality,  and 
Mrs.  Clavering  was  so  pleased  at  seeing  him  that 
she  actually  invited  him  to  sit  down  at  her  tea- 
table  and  have  tea.  This  he  did,  explaining 
why  his  daughter  had  sent  her  cards  instead  of 
coming. 

"Another  year,  I  hope,  my  dear  madam,  my 
daughter  may  be  persuaded  to  reenter  society, 
[184] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

which,  if  you  will  pardon  a  father's  pride,  I  think 
she  adorns.  But  at  present  she  is  overwhelmed 
with  grief  at  her  loss.  It  is  scarcely  eighteen 
months  since  she  became  a  widow  and  lost  the 
best  of  husbands." 

General  Brandon  prattled  on,  and  presently 
said  :  "  I  had  hoped  to  meet  Senator  Clavering 
here  this  afternoon,  and  made  my  visit  late  on 
purpose.  His  exacting  senatorial  duties,  how- 
ever, must  leave  him  little  time  for  social  relaxa- 
tion." 

"  I  think  I  hear  his  step  in  the  hall  now,"  said 
Anne.  "  He  will,  I  know,  be  very  much  pleased 
to  meet  you  again." 

As  she  spoke  Clavering's  firm  tread  was  heard, 
and  he  entered,  smiling,  debonair,  and  distin- 
guished-looking. Nobody  would  have  dreamed 
from  anything  in  his  air  or  looks  that  this  man 
was  nearing  a  crisis  in  his  fate,  and  that  even  then 
his  conduct  was  being  revealed  in  the  newspapers 
and  examined  by  his  fellow-senators  in  a  way 
which  opened  a  wide,  straight  vista  to  state's 
prison. 

Clavering  was  surprised,  but  undeniably  pleased, 

and  even  amused  at  seeing  Baskerville ;  and  Bas- 

kerville  felt  like  a  hound,  and  inwardly  swore  at 

himself  for  letting  the  wish  to  see  a  woman's  eyes 

[185] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

bring  him  to  Clavering's  house.  He  put  a  bold 
face  upon  it,  however,  shook  Clavering's  out- 
stretched hand,  and  called  himself  a  fool  and  a 
rogue  for  so  doing. 

The  warmth  of  Clavering's  greeting  to  General 
Brandon  delighted  the  simple  old  warrior.  Clav- 
ering,  who  had  too  much  sound  sense  to  avoid 
allusions  to  his  early  life  or  to  tell  lies  about  it, 
recalled  the  time  when  he  was  a  sutler  and  Gen- 
eral Brandon  was  an  officer.  Then  he  carried  the 
latter  off  to  an  alcove  in  the  library,  which  was 
now  deserted  except  by  Elise  and  Lydia.  These 
two  young  women,  reclining  like  odalisks  among 
the  cushions  of  a  luxurious  sofa,  discussed  Rosalka 
and  the  rest  of  their  swains  in  low  voices  and  in 
terms  which  luckily  their  father  did  not  overhear. 

Into  the  alcove  Clavering  caused  his  choicest 
brands  of  whiskey  to  be  brought,  and  at  once 
plunged  into  talk ;  and  into  that  talk  he  infused 
all  his  powers  of  pleasing,  which  soon  produced 
upon  the  simple  old  General  a  species  of  intoxica- 
tion. If  any  one  had  told  him  that  Clavering's 
attention  was  due  to  the  sight,  more  than  once 
obtained  since  Sunday,  of  Elizabeth  Darrell's 
graceful  figure  and  interesting,  melancholy  face, 
General  Brandon  would  have  called  that  person 
a  liar. 

[186] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  You  know,"  said  Clavering,  as  soon  as  the  two 
were  comfortably  established  with  the  whiskey 
and  the  cigars,  "that  I  am  being  badgered  and 
bothered  by  a  set  of  sharks,  calling  themselves 
lawyers,  who  want  to  rob  me  of  every  dollar  of 
my  fortune.  You  have  perhaps  read  in  the  news- 
papers something  about  this  K.  F.  R.  land-grant 
business." 

"  I  am  aware  the  public  prints  have  given  con- 
siderable space  to  it,"  replied  General  Brandon, 
"  but  I  have  no  knowledge  of  the  merits  of  the 
case." 

"  Neither  have  the  newspapers.  The  long  and 
short  of  it  is  that  the  sharks,  after  fighting  me 
through  every  court  in  the  country,  where  I  may 
say  I  have  managed  to  hold  my  own  pretty  well, 
have  contrived  by  political  wire-pulling  to  get  a 
Senate  committee  to  investigate  the  matter.  Now 
I  don't  want  to  be  lacking  in  courtesy  to  my 
brother  senators,  but  of  all  the  collection  of  asses, 
dunderheads,  and  old  women,  sneaks,  hypocrites, 
and  snivelling  dogs,  that  ever  were  huddled  to- 
gether, that  select  committee  of  my  esteemed  con- 
temporaries—  Good  Lord!  let's  take  a  drink." 

General  Brandon  drank  solemnly.  Whiskey  of 
that  brand  was  not  to  be  treated  lightly. 

"  I  know  well  all  the  country  embraced  in  and 
[187] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

contiguous  to  that  K.  F.  R.  land  grant,"  said  the 
General,  putting  down  his  glass  reverently.  "  I 
scouted  and  fought  and  hunted  over  all  that  region 
more  than  forty  years  ago,  when  I  was  a  young 
lieutenant  just  turned  loose  from  West  Point." 

"  Why,  then,"  cried  Clavering,  his  handsome 
eyes  lighting  up  with  a  glow  like  fire,  "you 
might  be  of  real  service  to  me."  He  did  not 
specify  what  manner  of  service  he  meant,  and 
General  Brandon  innocently  thought  Clavering 
meant  about  the  K.  F.  R.  land  grants.  But  no 
man  who  ever  lived  could  tell  Clavering  anything 
he  did  not  know  about  any  piece  of  property  he 
had  ever  owned ;  least  of  all  could  simple,  guile- 
less General  Brandon  tell  him  anything. 

"  I  should  be  most  happy,"  replied  the  General. 
"  I  have  a  considerable  quantity  of  memoranda, 
maps  and  surveys  of  the  region,  which  are  quite 
at  your  service." 

"  Capital,"  said  Clavering,  his  deep  eyes  shining 
with  a  keen  delight.  "  Now  as  the  investigation 
is  going  on,  which  you  have  seen  in  the  news- 
papers, I  shall  have  to  make  immediate  use  of  any 
information  you  might  be  able  to  give  me.  Sup- 
pose you  were  to  let  me  come  over  to  your  house 
to-night  and  take  our  first  view  of  what  you  have  ? 
And  of  course  you'll  stay  and  dine  with  me." 
[188] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

"  I  thank  you  very  much,  Senator,  but  I  can- 
not leave  my  daughter  to  dine  alone  —  she  is  too 
much  alone,  poor  child.  And  immediately  after 
dinner  I  am  engaged  to  spend  an  hour  with  an 
old  friend,  General  Mayse,  a  former  classmate  of 
mine  who  is  now  inflicted  with  paralysis  and  to 
whom  I  pay  a  weekly  visit.  Besides,  I  should 
have  to  rummage  among  my  papers  to  find  those 
that  we  require.  To-morrow  night  I  shall  be  at 
your  service." 

But  it  was  not  Clavering's  nature  to  delay  the 
accomplishment  of  any  wish.  He  wanted  to  see 
and  know  Elizabeth  Darrell,  so  he  said  cordially  : 
"  At  all  events  I  should  like  to  talk  the  matter 
over  with  you.  Would  you  allow  me  to  come  in 
this  evening  then,  after  you  have  returned  from 
your  visit  ?  " 

"  Certainly,  Senator.  I  shall  be  at  home  by 
half  after  nine." 

Then  Clavering,  seeing  that  General  Brandon 
was  his,  began  to  talk  about  other  things,  even 
to  hint  at  chances  of  making  money.  To  this 
General  Brandon  only  sighed  and  said  :  "  Those 
enterprises  are  for  men  with  capital.  I  have 
only  the  equity  in  my  house  and  my  salary,  and 
I  cannot,  for  my  daughter's  sake,  jeopardize 
what  little  I  have.  She  was  left  with  but  a 
[189] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

small  provision  from  her  husband's  estate,  which 
was  strictly  entailed."  Clavering  could  not  re- 
frain from  smiling  at  General  Brandon's  simplic- 
ity in  refusing  such  an  offer,  if  even  but  a  hint, 
for  such  a  reason  ;  but  he  said  no  more  on  the 
subject. 

As  the  General  passed  into  the  drawing-room 
to  say  good-by  to  Mrs.  Clavering,  he  was  sur- 
prised to  find  Baskerville  still  sitting  at  the  tea- 
table.  Baskerville  had  not  been  asked  to  stay  to 
dinner,  but  when  Mrs.  Luttrell  was  ready  to 
leave  a  very  mild  invitation  from  Mrs.  Clavering, 
who  had  no  notion  of  the  duration  of  fashionable 
visits,  had  made  him  ask  permission  to  remain 
—  a  permission  which  Mrs.  Luttrell  gave  with  a 
wink.  Anne  was  not  displeased  with  him  for 
staying  —  her  eyes  and  smile  conveyed  as  much  ; 
and  man-like,  Baskerville  had  succumbed  to  the 
temptation.  But  when  General  Brandon  came 
in  and  found  him  the  very  last  visitor  in  the 
drawing-room  he  felt  himself  distinctly  caught, 
and  made  his  farewells  with  more  haste  than 
grace.  Mrs.  Clavering  urged  him  to  come  again, 
and  Anne's  tones  conveyed  auf  wiedersehen  to 
him  as  eloquently  as  a  tone  can  without  specific 
words ;  nevertheless,  when  Baskerville  found 
himself  out  in  the  cool,  crisp  night,  he  began 
[190] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

to  doubt,  as  he  had  ever  doubted,  the  propriety 
of  his  going  to  Senator  Clavering's  house  at 
all.  But  General  Brandon  was  saying  to  him 
most  earnestly,  as  they  stood  under  the  lamp- 
post before  going  their  different  ways :  — 

"  Senator  Clavering  is  a  very  cruelly  maligned 
man  ;  of  that  I  am  certain.  And  I  think,  Mr. 
Baskerville,  that  most  of  the  testimony  you  and 
the  Civil  Service  League  and  the  K.  F.  R. 
attorneys  have  collected  will  break  down  when 
it  is  introduced  before  the  committee.  Why, 
Senator  Clavering  tells  me  that  he  has  been 
accused,  on  evidence  that  wouldn't  hang  a  dog, 
of  wholesale  bribery,  of  having  bought  his  seat 
in  the  Senate,  of  having  bought  up  courts  and 
legislatures.  But  he  will  be  triumphantly  vindi- 
cated—  I  make  no  doubt  at  all  of  that." 

"  I  wish  he  might  be,"  replied  Baskerville, 
with  a  degree  of  sincerity  that  would  scarcely 
have  been  credited  ;  "  but  I  don't  think  he  can 
be." 

When  General  Brandon  let  himself  into  his 
own  house,  dinner  was  ready  to  be  served.  He 
was  full  of  enthusiasm  about  the  Claverings. 
At  the  table  he  assured  Elizabeth  of  his  entire 
belief  in  Clavering  and  of  his  respect  for  him. 
Mrs.  Clavering  he  pronounced  to  be  a  most  ex- 
[191] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

cellent  and  unpretending  woman,  Anne  alto- 
gether admirable,  Reginald  Clavering  a  worthy 
fellow  and  a  sound  churchman,  and  Elise  Den- 
man  and  Lydia  Clavering  two  much-abused  young 
women,  in  whom  mere  high  spirits  and  uncon- 
ventionality  had  been  mistaken  for  a  degree  of 
imprudence  of  which  he  felt  sure  they  could 
never  be  guilty.  Then  he  mentioned  Claver- 
ing's  proposed  visit,  and  asked  Elizabeth  if  she 
would,  the  next  day,  find  the  trunk  in  which  he 
kept  certain  papers,  open  it,  and  get  out  of  it 
everything  dated  between  '56  and  '61. 

When  dinner  was  over  and  General  Brandon 
had  gone  out  to  pay  his  weekly  visit  to  his 
paralyzed  comrade,  Elizabeth  went  upstairs  to 
a  small  back  room,  called  by  courtesy  the  study. 
Here  were  General  Brandon's  few  books  ;  he  was 
not,  and  never  had  been,  a  man  of  books,  but 
he  liked  to  be  considered  bookish.  There  was 
in  the  room  an  open  grate  fire,  a  student's  lamp, 
and  some  old-fashioned  tables  and  easy-chairs. 
To  this  room  Elizabeth  had  succeeded  in  impart- 
ing an  air  of  comfort.  She  sat  down  before  the 
fire  to  spend  the  evening  alone,  as  she  had  spent 
so  many  evenings  alone  in  the  last  eighteen 
months,  and  would,  she  feared,  continue  to  spend 
her  evenings  for  the  rest  of  her  life.  She  had 
[192] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

expected  to  find  her  life  in  Washington  dull, 
but  the  weeks  she  had  been  at  home  had  been 
duller  than  she  had  thought  possible.  Her 
father's  old  friends  had  called  upon  her,  but 
they  were  all  staid  and  elderly  persons,  and  the 
circle  had  grown  pitifully  small  in  her  ten  years 
of  absence.  Those  ten  years  had  practically 
obliterated  her  own  acquaintances  in  the  ever 
changing  population  of  Washington,  and  the  few 
persons  left  in  the  gay  world  whom  she  knew, 
like  Mrs.  Luttrell,  it  was  plain  that  her  father 
did  not  expect  her  to  cultivate. 

One  resource  —  reading  —  occurred  to  her  on 
this  particular  evening.  She  had  a  mind  well 
fitted  for  books,  but  she  had  never  been  thrown 
with  bookish  people,  except  Pelham,  and  read- 
ing had  formed  no  essential  part  of  her  life. 
Pelham  was  a  man  of  great  intelligence,  and  a 
reader  ;  but  both  his  intelligence  and  his  read- 
ing were  confined  to  his  profession.  No  matter 
where  Elizabeth's  thinking  began,  Pelham  was 
sure  to  come  into  it  somewhere.  She  started  up 
from  her  chair  as  the  recollection  of  him,  which 
always  hovered  near  her,  took  shape  in  thought 
and  almost  in  speech,  and  going  to  the  book- 
case took  out  the  first  volume  her  hand  fell 
upon.  It  was  an  old  translation  of  Herodotus, 
o  [  193  ] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

and  Elizabeth,  determined  upon  a  mental  opiate, 
opened  it  at  random  and  read  on  resolutely. 
She  fell  upon  that  wonderful  story  of  Cyrus, 
the  reputed  son  of  Mithradates  the  herdsman  ; 
and  in  following  the  grandly  simple  old  narra- 
tive, told  with  so  much  of  art,  of  grace,  of  con- 
vincing perspicacity,  that  not  even  a  translation 
can  wholly  destroy  its  majestic  beauty,  Elizabeth 
lost  herself  in  the  shadowy,  ancient  past.  She 
was  roused  by  Serena's  voice  and  Serena's  hand, 
as  black  as  the  Ethiopians  in  Herodotus's  time, 
who  worshipped  no  other  gods  save  Jupiter  and 
Bacchus.  Serena  produced  a  card.  It  was 
simple  and  correct,  and  read  :  "  Mr.  James  Clav- 
ering,"  with  the  address. 

"It  is  Senator  Clavering,"  said  Elizabeth,  in  a 
moment.  "  Tell  him  that  General  Brandon  is  not 
at  home." 

"  De  gent'mun  seh  he  got  er  'p'intment  wid  de 
Gin'l,  an'  he  gwine  ter  wait  for  him.  I  t'ink, 
Miss  'Liz'beth,  you  better  lemme  ax  him  up  heah. 
De  parlor  is  jes'  freezin'  coP,"  answered  Serena, 
who  never  forgot  that  people  should  be  made 
comfortable. 

"Ask  him  up,  then,"  replied  Elizabeth.  She 
was  somewhat  flurried  at  the  thought  of  receiv- 
ing Clavering  alone,  but  there  was  no  help  for  it. 
[194] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

She  was  not,  however,  disappointed  ;  on  the  con- 
trary she  felt  a  deep  and  curious  interest  in  seeing 
this  man  and  tracing  if  possible  that  singular 
recollection  of  him,  so  sharp  yet  so  impalpable 
and  still  actually  inexplicable  to  herself. 

In  a  few  minutes  Serena  ushered  Clavering  into 
the  room.  At  close  range  he  was  even  more 
attractive  than  at  a  distance.  It  was  difficult  to 
associate  any  idea  of  advancing  age  with  him. 
Maturity  was  all  that  was  indicated  by  his  hand- 
some, smooth-shaven  face,  his  compact  and  elegant 
figure,  his  iron-gray  hair.  Manual  labor  had  left 
but  one  mark  upon  him  —  his  hands  were  rough 
and  marred  by  the  miner's  tools  he  had  used. 
He  was  perfectly  well  dressed  and  entirely  at  his 
ease.  He  introduced  himself  with  the  natural  and 
unaffected  grace  which  had  been  his  along  with 
his  sutler's  license  and  miner's  tools. 

"  This,  I  presume,  is  Mrs.  Darrell.  I  thank  you 
very  much  for  allowing  me  to  wait  for  General 
Brandon's  return."  He  said  no  word  about  his 
appointment  with  General  Brandon  being  at  half- 
past  nine  while  then  it  was  only  a  little  past 
eight. 

Elizabeth  invited  him  to  sit  down,  and  herself 
took  a  seat  opposite  him.  The  color  which  came 
into  her  pale  face  very  much  enhanced  her  looks, 
[195] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

and  Clavering  thought  he  had  never  seen  so  inter- 
esting a  woman.  Her  slender  black  figure  uncon- 
sciously assumed  a  pose  of  singular  grace  and 
ease,  the  delicate  color  mounted  slowly  into  her 
pale  cheeks,  and  she  was  indeed  worthy  of  any 
man's  notice.  And  as  her  personality  had  struck 
Clavering  with  great  force  at  the  very  first  glimpse 
he  had  had  of  her  ten  years  before,  so,  seeing  her 
close  at  hand  and  her  attention  fixed  on  himself, 
she  overpowered  him  quickly,  as  the  warm,  sweet 
scent  of  the  jessamine  flower  is  overpowering.  It 
was  what  he  would  have  called,  had  he  been  thirty 
years  younger,  love  at  first  sight. 

Clavering's  coming  into  the  room  was,  like  some 
new,  strong  force,  making  itself  felt  over  every- 
thing. The  small  room  seemed  full  of  him  and 
nothing  else.  He  was  by  nature  a  dominant  per- 
sonality, and  he  dominated  Elizabeth  Darrell  as 
strangely  and  suddenly  as  she  had  cast  a  spell  over 
him. 

"My  father  will  regret  very  much  not  being 
here  when  you  came.  Perhaps  he  misunderstood 
the  hour  of  your  appointment,"  she  said. 

Clavering's  white  teeth  shone  in  a  smile. 
"  Don't  trouble  about  that.  Besides,  it  has  given 
me  the  pleasure  of  seeing  you." 

Elizabeth  was  not  unmindful  of  the  fact  that 
[196] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

Clavering  was  a  married  man,  with  a  wife  across 
the  street ;  and  his  words,  which  would  have  been 
merely  those  of  courtesy  in  most  men,  could  not 
be  so  interpreted,  for  Clavering  was  not  a  man  of 
pretty  speeches. 

He  picked  up  the  volume  of  Herodotus  which 
lay  on  the  table.  "So  you've  been  reading  old 
Herodotus  !  That's  pretty  heavy  reading  for  a 
young  woman,  isn't  it?" 

"  I  took  it  up  at  random  just  now,  and  became 
interested  in  it,"  answered  Elizabeth. 

"  You  are  a  great  reader,  I  suppose  ?  " 

"  N-no.  Hardly,  that  is.  But  I  am  very  much 
alone,  and  I  have  read  a  good  deal  since  I  have 
returned  to  America." 

"  Why  should  a  woman  like  you  be  alone  ? 
Why  shouldn't  you  go  about  and  see  people  and 
live  like  other  women  of  your  age  ?  " 

Elizabeth  made  no  reply  to  this  ;  she  could 
scarcely  admit  that  her  seclusion  was  more  of  her 
father's  doing  than  her  own.  She  was  struck  by 
the  beauty  of  Clavering's  voice  and  by  the  correct- 
ness of  his  speech,  which  was  better  than  that  of 
many  college-bred  men. 

"  How  long  have  you  been  a  widow  ?  "  he  asked. 

"  A  year  and  a  half." 

"  And  have  you  any  children  ?  " 
[197] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  No,  I  lost  my  only  child  when  he  was  a  baby." 

"  That's  hard  on  a  woman.  You  women  never 
forget  those  dead  babies.  But  all  your  life  is 
before  you  yet." 

"It  seems  to  me  it  is  all  behind  me." 

"  Why  ?  Did  you  love  your  husband  very 
much?" 

Elizabeth  had  suffered  Clavering's  questions 
partly  through  surprise  and  partly  because 
Clavering  could  say  and  do  what  he  chose  with- 
out giving  offence  —  a  quality  which  had  been 
one  of  the  great  factors  in  raising  him  from  the 
shaft  of  a  mine  to  a  seat  in  the  United  States 
Senate.  But  the  question  put  to  Elizabeth  was 
so  unexpected,  —  it  had  never  been  asked  of  her 
before,  —  it  was  so  searching,  that  it  completely 
disconcerted  her.  She  remained  silent,  while  her 
eyes,  turned  upon  Clavering,  wore  a  look  of 
trouble  and  uncertainty. 

"A  great  many  women  don't  love  their  hus- 
bands," said  Clavering,  "  and  if  they  are  left 
widows,  their  feelings  are  very  complex.  They 
think  they  ought  to  grieve  for  their  husbands, 
but  they  don't." 

The  color  fled  suddenly  out  of  Elizabeth's 
cheeks.  Clavering's  words  fitted  her  case  so  ex- 
actly and  so  suddenly  that  she  was  startled  and 
[198] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

frightened.  It  was  as  if  he  had  looked  into  her 
soul  and  read  at  a  glance  her'  inmost  secrets.  She 
half  expected  him  to  say  next  that  she  had  loved 
another  man  than  her  husband.  And  as  for  apply- 
ing the  common  rules  of  behavior  to  a  man  like 
Clavering,  it  was  absurd  on  the  face  of  it.  He 
was  leaning  toward  Elizabeth,  his  elbow  on  the 
arm  of  his  chair,  his  eyes  fixed  upon  her  with  a 
kind  of  admiring  scrutiny.  He  found  her  quite 
as  interesting  as  he  had  expected,  and  he  ar- 
dently desired  to  know  more  about  her  and,  what 
is  as  great  a  mark  of  interest,  to  tell  her  more 
about  himself. 

Elizabeth  remained  silent  for  a  while,  and 
then  forced  herself  to  say  :  "  My  husband  was 
one  of  the  best  of  men.  He  was  as  good  as 
my  father." 

"  That  settles  it,"  replied  Clavering,  with  grim 
humor.  "  I  never  knew  a  woman  in  my  life 
who  spoke  of  her  husband's  goodness  first  who 
was  really  in  love  with  him.  When  a  woman 
is  in  love  with  a  man,  it  isn't  his  goodness  she 
thinks  of  first ;  it  is  his  love.  Now  don't  fly 
off  at  that ;  I'm  not  a  conventional  man,  and 
you  must  know  it  if  you  ever  heard  of  me  before. 
And  I  don't  mean  to  be  disrespectful.  On  the 
contrary,  I  want  your  good  opinion  —  I  have 
[199] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

wanted  it  ever  since  the  first  time  I  ever  saw 
you.  I  was  very  much  struck  with  you  then. 
I  have  wanted  to  know  you  and  I  have  planned 
to  know  you.  Have  I  committed  any  crime  ?  " 

"  But  —  but  —  you  are  a  married  man,"  said 
Elizabeth,  faltering,  and  conscious  that  she  was 
talking  like  an  ingenue. 

Clavering  laughed  as  he  replied  :  "  That's 
downright  school-girlish.  Any  boarding-school 
miss  would  say  the  same.  Well,  I  can't  help  it 
now  that  I  married  a  woman  totally  unsuited  to 
me  before  I  was  twenty-one  years  old.  Come, 
Mrs.  Darrell,  we  are  not  children.  I  wanted  to 
know  you,  I  say,  and  I  always  try  to  do  what  I 
want  to  do.  Don't  you  ?  Doesn't  everybody  ? 
Well,  let  us  then  know  each  other.  I  swear  to 
you  I  know  less  of  women  than  I  do  of  any  sub- 
ject I  have  ever  tried  to  master.  True,  I  never 
had  time  until  lately ;  and,  besides,  I  was  a 
middle-aged  man  before  I  ever  met  any  educated 
and  intelligent  women.  In  the  class  of  life  from 
which  I  spring  women  are  household  drudges  and 
bearers  of  children,  and  I  never  knew  them  in  any 
other  aspect  until  I  was  over  forty  years  of  age. 
Then  you  can't  imagine  what  a  stunning  revela- 
tion to  me  a  woman  was  who  had  never  done 
anything  but  amuse  herself  and  improve  herself. 
[200] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Suppose  you  had  never  met  any  educated  men 
till  now  —  wouldn't  you  find  them  captivating  ?  " 

When  a  man  talks  to  a  woman  as  she  has  never 
been  talked  to  before  he  is  certain  of  finding  an 
interested  listener,  and,  it  follows,  a  tolerant 
listener.  So  Elizabeth  could  not  disguise  her 
interest  in  Clavering,  nor  was  it  worth  while  to 
pretend  to  be  offended  with  him.  The  super- 
ficial knowledge  she  had  of  the  vicissitudes  of  his 
life  was  calculated  to  arouse  and  fix  her  attention  ; 
and  there  was  so  little  to  do  in  her  present  life 
that  she  would  have  been  more  or  less  than  mortal 
if  she  had  turned  from  the  first  object  of  interest 
she  had  yet  met  with  in  her  new  and  changed  and 
dreary  life. 

She  paused  awhile  before  answering  Clavering's 
last  question.  "  I  dare  say  I  should  feel  so,"  she 
answered.  "  I  remember  how  it  was  when  I  was 
first  married  and  went  to  India.  Everything  in- 
terested me.  I  could  not  look  at  a  native  without 
wanting  to  ask  all  manner  of  questions  of  him 
and  about  him,  which  of  course  I  could  not  be 
allowed  to  do  ;  and  the  life  there  is  so  strange  — 
their  race  problem  is  so  different  from  ours,  and 
all  my  modes  of  thought  had  to  be  changed.  I 
was  in  India  over  eight  years,  and  it  was  as 
strange  to  me  when  I  left  it  as  when  I  arrived." 
[201] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

Elizabeth  had  got  the  talk  away  from  the  per- 
sonal note  upon  which  Clavering  had  pitched  it, 
and  he,  seeing  he  had  said  enough  for  a  begin- 
ning, followed  Elizabeth's  conversational  lead.  He 
asked  her  many  questions  about  her  life  in  India, 
all  singularly  intelligent  and  well  put,  because 
drinking  at  the  fountain  of  other  people's  talk 
had  been  his  chief  source  of  education  during 
his  whole  life.  And  Clavering,  without  being 
widely  read,  was  far  from  being  an  ignorant  man. 
Although  he  knew  not  a  word  of  any  language 
except  his  own,  nor  the  history  of  any  country 
except  his  own.  he  was  well  acquainted  with  the 
history  of  his  own  times,  and  he  knew  who  every 
living  man  of  importance  in  his  own  country  and 
Europe  was,  and  what  he  was  doing.  Seeing 
that  Elizabeth  was  susceptible  to  the  charms  of 
conversation  and  had  a  distinct  intellectual  side, 
Clavering  appealed  to  her  on  that  side.  He  told 
her  with  an  inimitable  raciness  and  humor  some 
of  the  incidents  of  his  early  life  in  the  West, 
his  later  adventures,  even  of  his  career  in  the 
Senate. 

"  I  think  I  never  worked  so  hard  in  my  life 

as  I  have  during  the  five  years  I've  been  in  the 

Senate,"   he   said.       "  No  man  can  come  to  the 

Senate  of  the  United  States  with  the  education 

[202] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

of  a  sutler,  miner,  promoter,  speculator,  and  what 
not  —  such  as  I  have  had  —  and  not  work  hard  ; 
that  is,  if  he  expects  to  be  anything  else  than  a 
dummy.  But  it  isn't  in  James  Clavering  to  be  a 
dummy  anywhere.  So  I  have  thought  and  read 
and  worked  and  slaved,  and  bought  other  men's 
brains  in  the  last  five  years  as  earnestly  as  any 
man  ever  did.  The  result  is  that  when  I  open 
my  mouth  now  the  senators  listen.  At  first  the 
lawyers  in  the  Senate  used  to  hide  a  grin  when  I 
began  to  speak,  and  I  admit  I  did  make  some  bad 
breaks  in  the  beginning.  But  I  saw  my  way  out 
of  that  clearly  enough.  I  found  a  man  who  was 
really  a  great  constitutional  lawyer,  although  he 
had  never  been  able  to  make  more  than  a  bare 
living  out  of  his  profession  in  Chicago.  I  have 
always  invested  liberally  in  brains.  When  you 
can  actually  buy  brains  or  news,  you  are  buy- 
ing the  two  most  valuable  commodities  on  earth. 
Well,  when  I  took  up  a  question  I  had  my  man 
go  over  the  legal  aspects  of  it  and  put  them  down 
in  black  and  white.  Then  I  knew  well  enough 
how  to  use  them,  and  I  may  say  without  boasting 
that  I  have  done  as  well,  or  better,  than  any  man 
of  my  opportunities  now  in  the  Senate.  However, 
I  don't  compare  myself  with  such  men  as  Andrew 
Johnson.  You  know  his  wife  taught  him  to  write, 
[203] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

and  that  man  rose  to  be  President  of  the  United 
States.  Of  course  he  wasn't  what  you  would  call 
a  scholarly  man,  like  many  of  the  senators,  but 
good  Lord  !  think  of  the  vast  propelling  force 
that  took  an  illiterate  man  from  the  tailor's  bench 
and  gave  him  such  a  career  as  Andrew  Johnson's, 
and  made  him  Vice -President  of  the  United 
States.  Those  men  —  and  men  like  me,  too  — 
can't  be  called  all-round  men,  like  Senator  Thorn- 
dyke,  for  example.  All  of  us  have  got  great  big 
gaps  and  holes  in  our  knowledge  and  judgment 
and  conduct  that  the  normal  well-educated  man 
hasn't.  But  where  we  are  strong,  we  are  stronger 
than  they.  Do  you  know  anything  about  Thorn- 
dyke?" 

"  I  have  heard  my  father  speak  of  Mrs.  Thorn- 
dyke,  whose  family  he  knew  many  years  ago,  and 
he  visits  occasionally  at  Senator  Thorndyke's. 
Mrs.  Thorndyke  sent  me  a  request  that  I  would 
call  to  see  her,  but  —  but  —  I  don't  pay  any  visits 
now." 

"  It's  a  shame  you  don't  —  a  woman  like  you. 
Mrs.  Thorndyke  is  charming,  but  not  so  charming 
as  you.  And  I  lay  claim  to  great  nobility  of  soul 
when  I  praise  Mrs.  Thorndyke,  or  Thorndyke 
either,  for  that  matter.  Mrs.  Thorndyke  has  no 
use  for  me  or  for  anybody  of  my  name,  except  my 
[204] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

second  daughter.  And  Thorndyke,  although  he 
isn't  leading  the  pack  of  hounds  who  are  baying 
after  me  to  get  me  out  of  the  Senate,  is  quietly 
giving  them  the  scent.  Yet  I  swear  I  admire 
Thorndyke  —  or,  rather,  I  admire  his  education 
and  training,  which  have  made  him  what  he  is. 
If  I  had  had  that  training  —  a  gentleman  for  my 
father,  a  lady  for  my  mother,  association  with  the 
sons  of  gentlemen  and  ladies,  a  university  educa- 
tion, and  then  had  married  a  lady  —  " 

Clavering  got  up  and  took  a  turn  about  the 
narrow  room.  Finally  he  came  and  sat  down  in 
a  chair  closer  to  Elizabeth,  and  continued  : 
"Thorndyke  is  one  of  the  lawyers  in  the  Senate 
who  used  to  bother  me.  It  seemed  to  me  at  first 
that  every  time  I  opened  my  mouth  in  the  Senate 
chamber  I  butted  into  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States.  Either  I  was  butting  into  the 
shalls  or  the  shall  nots,  and  Thorndyke  always  let 
me  know  it.  I  could  get  along  from  the  first  well 
enough  in  the  rough-and-tumble  of  debate  with 
men  like  Senator  Crane,  for  example,  —  a  hand- 
some fellow,  from  the  West,  too,  very  showy  in 
every  way,  but  not  the  man  that  Thorndyke  is. 
It  was  the  scholarly  men  that  I  was  a  little  afraid 
of,  I'm  not  ashamed  to  say.  I  am  a  long  way  off 
from  a  fool ;  consequently  I  know  my  own  limita- 
[205] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

tions,  and  a  want  of  scholarship  is  one  of  those 
limitations." 

Elizabeth  listened,  more  and  more  beguiled. 
She  could  not  but  see  a  sort  of  self-respect  in  this 
man  ;  he  respected  his  own  intellect  because  it 
was  worth  respecting,  and  he  had  very  little  re- 
spect for  his  own  character  and  honor  because  he 
knew  they  were  not  worth  respecting.  As  Eliza- 
beth studied  him  by  the  mellow  lamplight,  while 
his  rich  voice  echoed  through  the  small  room,  she 
could  not  but  recognize  that  here  was  a  consid- 
erable man,  a  considerable  force  ;  and  she  had 
never  known  a  man  of  this  type  before.  She 
noted  that  he  was  as  well  groomed  as  the  most 
high-bred  man  she  had  ever  known  —  as  well  as 
Pelham,  for  example.  He  had  come  into  the 
room  with  ease  and  grace.  No  small  tricks  of 
manner  disfigured  him;  he  was  naturally  polished, 
and  he  had  the  gift,  very  rare  and  very  dangerous, 
of  saying  what  he  would  without  giving  offence, 
—  or,  rather,  of  disarming  the  person  who  might 
be  offended.  And  in  spite  of  his  frank  talking  of 
himself  Elizabeth  saw  in  him  an  absence  of  small 
vanity,  of  restless  self-love.  Unconsciously  she 
assumed  an  air  of  profound  interest  in  what  Clav- 
ering  was  saying,  —  a  form  of  flattery  most  insidi- 
ous and  effective  because  of  its  unconsciousness. 
[206] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

Elizabeth  herself,  in  the  eighteen  months  of 
loneliness,  poverty,  and  desperate  anxiety  which 
she  had  lately  known,  had  almost  lost  the  sweet 
fluency  which  had  once  distinguished  her ;  but 
presently  Clavering  chose  to  make  her  talk,  and 
succeeded  admirably.  She  found  herself  speaking 
frankly  about  her  past  life  and  telling  things  she 
had  never  thought  of  telling  a  stranger ;  but 
Clavering  seemed  anything  but  a  stranger.  In 
truth,  he  had  probed  her  so  well  that  he  knew 
much  more  about  her  than  she  had  dreamed  of 
revealing. 

When  at  last  General  Brandon's  step  was  heard, 
Elizabeth  started  like  a  guilty  child ;  she  had  for- 
gotten that  her  father  was  to  return.  General 
Brandon  was  delighted  to  see  Clavering,  and  took 
a  quarter  of  an  hour  to  explain  why  he  had  been 
ten  minutes  late. 

"  I  didn't  expect  to  see  any  papers  to-night," 
replied  Clavering,  "  but  I  should  like  to  talk  over 
some  things  with  you.  Please  don't  go,  Mrs. 
Darrell;  what  I  have  to  say  you  are  at  perfect 
liberty  to  hear." 

Elizabeth  hesitated,  and  so  did  General  Bran- 
don ;  but  Clavering  settled  the  matter  by  saying : 
"  If  I  am  to  drive  you  out  of  your  sitting  room, 
I  shall  feel  obliged  to  remain  away,  and  thereby 
[207] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

be  deprived  of  General  Brandon's  valuable  ser- 
vices." Elizabeth  remained. 

Clavering  then  began  to  give  the  history  from 
his  point  of  view  of  the  K.  F.  R.  land  grants.  It 
was  a  powerfully  interesting  story,  told  with  much 
dramatic  force.  It  embraced  the  history  of  much 
of  Clavering's  life,  which  was  in  itself  a  long  suc- 
cession of  uncommon  episodes.  It  lost  nothing  in 
the  telling.  Then  he  came  to  the  vindictive  and 
long-continued  fight  made  on  him  politically,  which 
culminated  in  the  bringing  of  these  matters  before 
a  Senate  committee  by  a  powerful  association  of 
Eastern  railway  magnates  and  corporation  law- 
yers, aided  by  the  senators  in  opposition  and 
others  in  his  own  party  who,  because  he  was 
not  strictly  amenable  to  party  discipline,  would 
be  glad  to  see  him  driven  out  of  the  Senate. 
But  Clavering  was  a  fighting  man,  and  although 
driven  to  the  wall,  he  had  his  back  to  it ;  he  was 
very  far  from  surrender,  and  so  he  said. 

Elizabeth  listened  with  breathless  interest. 
Nothing  like  this  had  ever  come  into  her  expe- 
rience before.  It  struck  her  as  being  so  much 
larger  and  stronger  than  any  of  the  struggles 
which  she  had  heretofore  known  that  it  dwarfed 
them  all.  Everybody's  affairs  seemed  small  be- 
side Clavering's.  Yet  she  was  fully  conscious  all 
[208] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

the  time  that  this  was  special  pleading  on  Claver- 
ing's  part.  She  admired  the  ingenuity,  the  finesse, 
the  daring,  that  Clavering  had  shown  and  was 
showing ;  but  it  all  seemed  to  her  as  if  there  must 
be  something  as  large  and  as  strong  on  the  other 
side. 

No  such  idea,  however,  came  into  General  Bran- 
don's kind,  simple  wooden  head.  When  Claver- 
ing had  finished  speaking,  the  General  rose  and, 
grasping  him  by  the  hand,  said  solemnly :  "  My 
dear  sir,  I  sympathize  with  you  profoundly.  I 
am  convinced  that  you  have  been  the  victim  of 
misplaced  confidence,  and  that  this  unprincipled 
hounding  of  you  on  the  part  of  men  who  wish  to 
rob  you,  not  only  of  your  property  and  your  seat 
in  the  Senate,  but  your  high  character  and  your 
priceless  good  name,  is  bound  to  come  to  naught. 
I  offer  you  my  sincere  sympathy,  and  I  assure  you 
that  I  place  entire  credence  in  every  word  that 
you  have  told  me." 

This  was  more  than  Elizabeth  did;  and  when 
Clavering  thought  of  it  afterward,  sitting  over 
his  library  fire,  he  laughed  to  himself.  On  the 
strength  of  it,  however,  he  had  secured  opportu- 
nities of  seeing  General  Brandon's  daughter  very 
often,  and  he  did  not  mean  to  let  the  grass  grow 
under  his  feet. 

p  [  209  ] 


Chapter  Eleven 

THE  season  opened  with  a  bang  on  the  first  of 
December.  The  smart  set  could  barely  get  six 
hours  in  bed  from  going  to  parties  at  all  hours. 
This  did  not  apply  to  Mrs.  Luttrell,  who,  al- 
though she  was  out  every  night,  did  not  disturb 
herself  to  appear  in  public  until  four  o'clock  in 
the  afternoon.  That  particular  form  of  barbaric 
entertainment  known  as  a  ladies'  luncheon  had 
no  charms  for  Mrs.  Luttrell,  because  there  were 
no  men  to  be  found  at  them ;  for  this  woman, 
who  cherished  with  an  idolatrous  recollection 
the  memory  of  the  only  man  she  had  ever 
loved,  and  who  had  refused  more  offers  of 
marriage  than  any  other  woman  of  her  day, 
frankly  admitted  that  she  couldn't  enjoy  any- 
thing without  a  masculine  element  in  it.  And 
men  she  contrived  to  have  in  plenty,  with  a  suc- 
cess but  little  inferior  to  that  of  Ninon  de  1'Enclos. 

For   that  reason   Richard  Baskerville  was  not 

only  the  person  Mrs.  Luttrell  loved  best  in  the 

world,  but  was  really  her  most  intimate  friend. 

There  was  nothing  Mrs.  Luttrell  enjoyed  so  much 

[210] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

as  a  midnight  tete-a-t§te  over  her  bedroom  fire 
with  Baskerville,  he  just  from  his  books  and  she 
just  from  her  nightly  gayety.  Mrs.  Luttrell 
scorned  a  boudoir,  —  or  the  modern  version  of  it, 
a  den.  She  had  a  huge,  old-fashioned  bedroom, 
with  an  ancient  four-poster  mahogany  bed,  with 
green  silk  curtains,  and  a  lace  valance ;  and  every- 
thing in  the  room  was  big  and  square  and  hand- 
some and  comfortable,  like  the  bed.  There  was 
a  large  fireplace,  with  shining  brass  fire-dogs  and 
a  monumental  brass  fender ;  and  Mrs.  Luttrell  fre- 
quently admitted  that  when  she  got  her  feet  on  that 
fender  and  her  dressing-gown  on,  she  grew  so  com- 
municative that  she  would  tell  the  inmost  secrets 
of  her  soul  to  the  veriest  stranger,  if  he  had  his 
feet  on  the  fender  at  the  same  time. 

It  was  on  a  night  early  in  January  that  Mrs. 
Luttrell  nabbed  Baskerville  at  her  door,  as  she  was 
being  let  in  by  the  sleepy  black  butler.  Basker- 
ville followed  her  upstairs  into  her  room,  consid- 
erately turning  his  back  while  the  old  lady  got  out 
of  her  black-velvet  gown,  and  whisked  off  her 
flannel  petticoat,  into  her  comfortable  dressing- 
gown  —  an  operation  she  performed  without  the 
least  regard  for  his  presence.  Then,  when  her 
delicate,  high-bred  feet  were  on  the  fender  before 
the  glowing  wood  fire,  she  said :  — 
[211] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  Now  you  can  turn  around  —  and  I'm  a  great 
deal  more  clothed  than  the  women  you  take  down 
to  dinner  or  dance  with  at  balls." 

"  I  don't  dance  at  a  great  many  balls.  Let  me 
see  —  I  haven't  danced  for  —  " 

"  Oh,  I  know.  Well,  I'm  just  from  a  dinner  at 
Secretary  Slater's,  where  that  ridiculous  little  Mrs. 
Hill-Smith,  his  daughter,  was  in  great  feather,  and 
also  the  Baldwin  girl  and  Anne  Clavering." 

"  You  ought  to  beg  Miss  Clavering's  pardon 
for  bracketing  her  with  Mrs.  Hill-Smith  and 
Eleanor  Baldwin." 

"  My  dear  boy,  it  would  make  you  die  laugh- 
ing to  see  the  patronizing  air  Mrs.  Hill-Smith  and 
Eleanor  Baldwin  put  on  with  Anne  Clavering.  As 
the  Slater  family  is  at  least  forty  years  old  and  the 
Brentwood-Baldwins  quite  twenty  years  old,  they 
regard  the  Claverings,  who  have  come  up  within 
the  last  six  years,  very  much  as  the  old  French 
nobility  regarded  the  bourgeoisie.  But  I  think 
Anne  Clavering  is  a  match  for  them.  Indeed,  she 
proved  herself  a  match  for  a  much  more  consider- 
able antagonist  —  that  is,  myself  —  this  very 
night." 

"Have  you  been  impertinent  to  Miss  Claver- 
ing?" 

"Well,  Richard,  my  dear  boy,  I  am  afraid  I 
[212] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

have  been.  But  it  was  all  the  fault  of  those  two 
foolish  creatures,  Mrs.  Hill-Smith  and  Eleanor 
Baldwin.  It  was  in  this  way.  The  gentlemen," 
—  Mrs.  Luttrell  still  used  this  antique  word,  — 
"  the  gentlemen  had  come  into  the  drawing-room 
after  dinner  —  very  prim  and  proper  they  were 
after  their  cigarettes  and  two  glasses  of  hock. 
In  my  time,  when  the  gentlemen  came  in  after 
dinner  they  were  always  as  merry  as  lords  and 
delightfully  free  :  I  have  been  slapped  on  the 
back  by  Daniel  Webster  at  a  dinner,  when  I  was 
sixteen  years  old.  But  nothing  so  agreeable  hap- 
pens now  —  and  there  aren't  any  Daniel  Websters, 
either.  Well,  when  I  was  talking  to  that  ridicu- 
lous Mrs.  Hill-Smith  something  unluckily  started 
me  off  upon  the  new  people  in  Washington. 
Mrs.  Hill-Smith,  you  know,  assumes  that  she 
has  sixteen  quarterings,  so  she  has  to  grin  and 
bear  it  when  I  begin  telling  about  people  ;  and  I 
always  say  to  her,  *  You  and  I,  Mrs.  Hill-Smith, 
who  knew  some  people  before  I860.'  Somebody 
was  speaking  about  Mrs.  James  Van  Cortlandt 
Skinner's  private  chaplain  —  that  woman  has 
added  much  to  the  gayety  of  nations.  There's 
a  story  going  around  that  she  had  a  darling  of  a 
fight  over  it,  not  only  with  the  bishop,  but  with 
the  bishop's  wife  ;  and  I  was  giving  a  very  amus- 
[213] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

ing  account  of  it,  when  Anne  Clavering  quietly 
remarked  that  she  happened  to  know  that  Mrs. 
Skinner  had  not  spoken  of  it  yet  to  the  bishop. 
Of  course  this  spoiled  my  story,  and  I  was  a  little 
cross  about  it.  Judge  Woodford  was  present,  and 
he  told  a  pleasant  little  tale  about  my  grand- 
father having  been  very  cross  on  one  occasion, 
and  having  pulled  somebody's  nose,  and  I  said  my 
crossness  was  a  case  of  atavism  on  my  part.  And 
so  it  was  turned  into  a  joke.  When  we  were 
leaving  I  was  sorry  I  had  been  short  with  Anne 
Clavering,  so  I  went  up  and  asked  her  to  come 
and  see  me  on  my  next  day  at  home,  and  to  pour 
tea  for  me  —  that  I  still  held  to  the  good  old  fash- 
ion of  keeping  a  day  at  home  and  seeing  my 
friends.  And  what  do  you  think  the  minx  said  ? 
She  was  very  sorry,  but  she  had  an  attack  of 
atavism,  too,  —  her  grandfather  wasn't  used  to 
afternoon  tea  and  she  had  never  acquired  any 
real  taste  for  it !  " 

Baskerville  laughed  delightedly. 

"  Oh,  it  wasn't  so  clever,  after  all,"  said  Mrs. 
Luttrell,  smiling  with  that  unshakable  good  humor 
which  was  the  most  exasperating  thing  on  earth 
to  all  her  enemies  and  her  friends  alike.  "  It  is 
just  because  you're  in  love  with  Anne  Clavering  ; 
and  I  think  she  likes  you  pretty  well,  too." 
[214] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Baskerville  sat  up  then,  sobered  in  an  instant. 
What  Mrs.  Luttrell  knew  or  suspected  all  Wash- 
ington would  shortly  know.  "  Why  do  you  say 
that  ?  "  he  asked  quietly. 

"  Because  I  think  it,  that's  why.  It's  one  of 
the  strangest  things  in  the  world  that  people  in 
love  think  all  the  rest  of  the  world  blind  and  deaf. 
And  a  woman  lets  her  secret  out  just  as  readily  as 
a  man.  I  say  Anne  Clavering  likes  you.  I  don't 
say  she  is  pining  and  can't  eat  and  sleep  for  you  ; 
but  I  do  say  she  likes  you,  though.  And  I  feel 
sorry  for  the  girl  —  such  a  family  !  You  ought  to 
see  how  that  divorcee,  Mrs.  Denman,  goes  on  with 
Count  von  Kappf,  who,  I  believe,  has  been  sent 
over  here  by  a  syndicate  to  marry  an  American 
heiress.  Nobody  knows  what  Anne  Clavering  has 
to  suffer  for  the  conduct  of  that  sister  of  hers." 

"  And  you,  who  call  yourself  a  Christian,  had  to 
add  to  Miss  Clavering's  mortification." 

"  Oh,  it  was  only  a  trifle,  and  she  came  out 
ahead." 

"  Anyhow,  you  shall  apologize  to  her.  Do  you 
understand  me,  Sara  Luttrell  ?  You  shall  apolo- 
gize, and  before  me,  too." 

"  Very  well,"  replied  Mrs.  Luttrell,  unabashed. 
"  The  first  time  I  catch  you  and  Anne  Clavering 
together  I'll  apologize." 

[215] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Baskerville  sat  silent  for  a  while  as  Mrs.  Lut- 
trell  luxuriously  toasted  her  toes.  Presently  he 
said,  "  So  people  are  kind  enough  to  say  that  I  am 
in  love  with  Miss  Clavering?  " 

"  Yes,  indeed.  People  are  always  kind  enough 
to  say  things  —  and  a  great  many  people  are  say- 
ing that  you  are  in  love  with  her.  You  haven't 
escaped  notice  as  much  as  you  thought." 

"  I  don't  desire  to  escape  notice.  And  I  only 
hope  enough  people  will  say  it  so  it  will  get  to 
Miss  Clavering's  ears.  Then  she  may  not  be  so 
surprised  as  to  throw  me  over  when  —  the  oppor- 
tunity comes.  I  may  be  a  good  many  sorts  of  a 
blamed  fool,  Sara,  but  I  am  not  such  a  fool  as  to 
be  anything  but  flattered  when  my  name  is  associ- 
ated with  Miss  Clavering's." 

"  Very  decently  said.  But  how  are  you  going 
to  manage  about  this  senatorial  investigation  — 
trying  to  ruin  the  father  as  a  preliminary  to 
marrying  the  daughter  ?  " 

Baskerville  grew  grave  at  once.  The  investi- 
gation was  on  in  earnest.  The  committee  which 
had  been  appointed  before  the  adjournment  of 
Congress  had  begun  its  sittings  directly  upon  the 
meeting  of  Congress,  and  Baskerville  had  at  once 
come  into  prominence  as  one  of  the  representa- 
tives of  the  Civil  Service  League.  The  question 
[216] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

of  Clavering's  culpability  with  regard  to  the  land 
grants  was  complicated  with  the  open  barter  and 
sale  of  Federal  offices,  and  the  Civil  Service 
League  had  taken  it  up  actively.  The  League 
was  in  no  way  bound  by  senatorial  courtesy,  and 
it  had  a  formidable  array  of  evidence  to  produce, 
which  pointed  straight"  to  criminal  as  well  as  civil 
indictments.  Baskerville  found  himself  in  a  diffi- 
cult position.  He  had  gone  too  far  in  one  direc- 
tion toward  exposing  Senator  Clavering,  and  his 
heart  had  carried  him  too  far  in  another  direction, 
for  he  was  at  last  beginning  to  realize  that  he  had 
fallen  in  love  with  Anne  Clavering  —  a  path  upon 
which  a  strong  man  never  halts.  It  is  your 
weakling  who  falls  halfway  in  love  and  then 
stops. 

Mrs.  Luttrell  studied  Baskerville  keenly.  Her- 
self a  sentimentalist  in  disguise,  she  loved  Basker- 
ville the  better  for  doing  what  she  had  long 
dreaded  —  for  she  had  a  woman's  jealousy  of 
another  woman's  usurping  the  first  place  with  this 
nephew-in-law,  who  was  son,  companion,  and 
comrade  in  one.  But  at  least  he  did  not  contem- 
plate foisting  a  pink-and-white  nonentity  upon 
her ;  Mrs.  Luttrell  always  declared  herself 
afraid  of  silly  women.  She  not  only  liked  Anne 
Clavering,  but  she  saw  in  her  a  large  and  gener- 
[217] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

ous  spirit,  who  would  not,  by  small  artifices,  try 
to  come  between  Baskerville  and  Mrs.  Luttrell. 
And  the  ineradicable  interest  which  is  every 
woman's  inalienable  right  in  a  love-affair  was 
strong  in  Mrs.  LuttrelPs  breast.  She  began  to 
wish  that  Baskerville  and  Anne  would  marry;  and 
after  sitting  quite  silent  for  ten  minutes  watching 
Baskerville's  moody  face,  she  suddenly  got  up, 
went  over  to  him,  and  smoothing  the  hair  back 
from  his  forehead,  kissed  it  tenderly.  Two  tears 
dropped  upon  his  brow.  Baskerville  looked  up 
and  took  her  hands  in  his.  He  spoke  no  word, 
but  he  knew  that  the  memory  of  the  man  so  long 
dead  was  poignant  still ;  and  Mrs.  Luttrell,  after 
a  pause,  said  in  a  low  voice  :  — 

"  I  hope  Anne  Clavering  will  love  you  as  I 
loved  my  Richard.  And  if  you  can  make  her  as 
happy  as  he  made  me —  Good  night.  I  can't 
bear  to  speak  much  of  it,  even  to  you." 

"  If  any  woman  ever  loves  me  as  you  loved  my 
uncle,  I  should  think  myself  eternally  blessed 
with  such  love.  Good  night,  Sara  dear." 

He  kissed  her  warmly,  went  out  of  the 
room  and  downstairs  and  across  the  garden  to  his 
own  house,  and  into  his  library.  The  first  thing 
he  saw  upon  the  big  library  table  was  a  mass  of 
documents  relating  to  the  K.  F.  R.  land  grants. 
[218] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Baskerville  pushed  them  away,  and  taking  up  a 
well-thumbed  volume  of  Theocritus  tried  to  forget 
himself  in  the  pictures  of  the  fair  shining  of  the 
Sicilian  sun,  in  the  sound  of  the  pipe  of  Daphnis, 
in  the  complainings  of  the  two  poor  old  fishermen 
lying  by  night  in  their  wattled  cabin  on  the  sand 
dunes. 

All  was  in  vain.  His  thoughts  were  no  sooner 
diverted  from  Anne  Clavering  than  they  turned 
to  Clavering  and  his  affairs.  How  amazing  was 
this  man  who  had  rough-hewn  his  way  to  a  high 
place,  to  enormous  wealth,  to  great  power,  from 
which  he  was  likely  to  be  thrown  headlong  into 
an  abyss  of  shame!  Baskerville  had  very  little 
doubt  that,  no  matter  how  successful  might  be  the 
suits  against  Clavering,  he  would  manage  to  re- 
tain great  tangible  sums  of  money.  Men  of  the 
Clavering  type  hold  on  to  their  money  more  in- 
telligently than  to  their  supposititious  honor. 
And  finding  it  impossible  to  get  away  from  his 
own  thoughts,  even  in  books  which  had  heretofore 
been  an  unfailing  sedative,  Baskerville  went  to 
bed,  and  tossed  in  true  lover's  fashion  half  the 
remaining  night,  before  he  fell  into  a  troubled 
sleep  to  dream  of  Anne  Clavering. 


[219] 


Chapter  Twelve 

IT  is  said  that  all  truly  benevolent  women 
are  matchmakers,  and  although  Mrs.  Thorndyke 
would  have  indignantly  denied  the  charge  of  be- 
ing a  matchmaker,  it  was  an  indisputable  fact 
that  within  a  fortnight  of  dining  at  Mrs.  Luttrell's 
she  contrived  an  impromptu  dinner  at  which 
Anne  Clavering  and  Baskerville  were  the  first 
guests  to  be  asked;  and  if  they  had  declined,  it  is 
doubtful  if  the  dinner  would  have  come  off  at  all. 
However,  they  both  accepted  ;  and  Mrs.  Thorn- 
dyke,  whether  by  inadvertence,  as  she  stoutly 
alleged,  or  by  design,  as  Thorndyke  charged, 
had  Baskerville  take  Anne  in  to  dinner. 

Some  faint  reflection  of  the  rumor  which  was 
flying  about  Washington  concerning  Baskerville's 
devotion  had  reached  Anne  Clavering's  ears.  It 
gave  a  delightful  shyness  to  her  eyes,  a  warm 
color  to  her  usually  pale  cheeks.  Something  in 
Baskerville's  manner  —  the  ingenuity  with  which 
he  managed  to  perform  every  little  service  for  her 
himself,  conveyed  subtly  but  plainly  to  Anne  his 
interest  in  her.  She  had  been  deeply  flattered  and 
[220] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

even  made  happy  by  Baskerville's  calling  at  last 
at  her  house.  There  was  every  reason  why  he 
should  remain  away  —  so  much  Anne  had  ad- 
mitted to  herself  often,  and  always  with  a  burn- 
ing blush,  remembering  what  she  knew  and  had 
read  about  the  investigation  through  which  her 
father  was  passing.  But  Baskerville  had  come, 
and  there  must  have  been  a  powerful  force,  much 
stronger  than  her  mother's  timid  invitation,  to 
bring  him.  Perhaps  he  came  because  he  could 
not  stay  away. 

At  this  thought  Anne,  who  was  sitting  at  her 
dressing-table  after  the  dinner  at  the  Thorn- 
dykes',  caught  sight  of  her  own  face  in  the  mir- 
ror. A  happy  smile  hovered  about  the  corners  of 
her  mouth,  her  eyes  became  eloquent.  Women, 
being  close  students  of  their  own  emotions,  can 
always  detect  the  dawning  and  the  development 
of  this  silent  but  intense  interest  in  a  certain  man, 
an  interest  which  is  born,  grows,  and  often  dies 
for  want  of  nourishment,  but  sometimes  lives  and 
thrives  on  neglect — and  sometimes,  —  O  glori- 
ous consummation !  —  comes  into  its  kingdom  of 
love.  Anne  Clavering,  who  had  passed  her 
twenty-seventh  birthday,  and  who,  shamed  and 
indignant  at  the  conduct  of  her  sisters,  had  main- 
tained a  haughty  reserve  toward  men  and  had 
[221] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

hitherto  found  it  easy,  knew  that  it  was  not  with- 
out meaning  she  felt  herself  watching  for  Basker- 
ville's  entrance  into  a  room  ;  that  she  was  secretly 
uneasy  until  he  had  placed  himself  beside  her ; 
that  when  he  talked,  an  instant,  sweet,  and  posi- 
tive mental  sympathy  came  into  being  between 
them  which  seemed  to  bring  them  together  with- 
out any  volition  on  their  part. 

January  was  flying  by.  Anne  Clavering  went 
out  quite  as  much  as  Mrs.  Luttrell,  but  with  a 
different  motive.  To  Mrs.  Luttrell  society  was  a 
necessity,  as  a  thing  becomes  after  a  lifetime  of 
habitude.  Anne  Clavering  would  have  liked  so- 
ciety well  enough  if  it  had  been  merely  a  means 
of  pleasure.  But  she  had  to  maintain  before  the 
world  a  position  which  her  father  and  her  two 
sisters  jeopardized  every  hour.  The  place  of  the 
Claverings  in  society  was  by  no  means  a  fixed 
one.  All  the  idle  and  careless  people,  all  the 
worshippers  of  money,  all  those  who  love  to  eat 
and  drink  at  somebody  else's  expense,  all  those 
who  pursue  pleasure  without  conscience  or  deli- 
cacy, thronged  the  Clavering  house. 

Clavering  himself  was  seldom  invited  out,  and 

did  not  regret  it.     The  small  talk  of  society  bored 

him,  and  he  was  conscious  that  he  did  not  shine 

unless  he  had  the  centre  of  the  stage.     Occasion- 

[222] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

ally  he  met  a  man  who  interested  him,  and  semi- 
occasionally  a  woman  who  did  the  same.  But  no 
woman  had  ever  interested  him  as  much  as  Eliza- 
beth Darrell.  He  was  amazed,  himself,  at  the 
power  she  had  of  drawing  him  to  her ;  for,  under 
the  specious  pretence  of  getting  information  from 
General  Brandon  concerning  the  K.  F.  R.  land 
grants,  Clavering  soon  managed  to  spend  two  or 
three  evenings  a  week  in  Elizabeth's  company. 
He  speedily  found  out  General  Brandon's  ways — 
his  hour  or  two  at  the  club  in  the  evening,  his 
visits  to  his  old  friends,  all  of  which  were  clock- 
like  in  their  regularity.  On  these  evenings,  when 
General  Brandon  returned  to  meet  an  appoint- 
ment, Clavering  would  invariably  be  found  estab- 
lished in  the  study.  Any  other  man  in  the  world 
but  General  Brandon  would  have  had  his  suspi- 
cions aroused,  but  the  General  was  born  to  be 
hoodwinked.  His  chivalric  honor,  his  limpidness 
of  character,  his  entire  innocence,  were  strong 
forces,  as  all  these  things  are.  He  radiated  good 
influences  upon  honest  men,  and  gave  active  en- 
couragement to  every  rogue  of  every  sort  who 
had  dealings  with  him. 

Elizabeth  Darrell,  however,  was  not  so  simple 
as  her  father.     After  that  first  evening  she  saw 
that   Clavering  was    determined    to    secure    her 
[223] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

society.  She  wondered  at  herself  for  submitting 
to  it,  but  in  truth  it  would  have  been  more  re- 
markable if  she  had  not  done  so.  The  extreme 
dulness  of  her  life  made  almost  any  companionship 
a  resource,  and  Clavering  had  certain  fascinating 
qualities  which  were  very  obvious.  Without 
making  himself  the  hero  of  his  own  recitals,  he 
gave  the  most  vivid  and  interesting  pictures  of 
life  on  the  wide  Wyoming  ranges,  on  the  Staked 
Plains,  in  California  mining  camps,  amid  the 
boulders  of  the  Yellowstone.  Elizabeth  listened 
under  a  kind  of  bewitchment,  while  Clavering, 
in  his  rich  voice,  told  the  story  of  those  years  — 
a  story  pulsing  with  movement,  brilliant  with 
adventure,  with  life  and  death  at  issue  every  mo- 
ment. She  began  to  understand  this  man's  power 
over  men,  and  to  recognize  a  kind  of  compulsion 
he  exercised  over  her.  She  might  have  remained 
out  of  the  study,  where,  with  a  map  spread  out,  to 
amuse  General  Brandon,  Clavering  talked  to  him 
and  at  Elizabeth.  She  was  present  not  only  be- 
cause she  wished  to  be,  but  she  recognized  dis- 
tinctly that  she  also  came  because  Clavering 
wished  her  to  come.  Especially  was  this  true 
with  regard  to  those  odd  half-hours  which  she 
spent  with  Clavering  alone. 

Once  she  went  out  of  the  room  when  Serena 
[224] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

brought  Clavering's  card  up.  In  a  minute  or  two 
Serena  canie  with  a  message  :  "  De  gent'mun  seh 
he  mus'  see  you,  Miss  'Liz'beth,  'bout  some  dem 
papers  outen  de  Gin'l's  trunk."  And  Elizabeth, 
obeying  this  strange  compulsion,  went  back  into 
the  room,  and  saw  Clavering's  eyes  light  up  with 
lambent  fire  at  sight  of  her. 

That  he  was  deeply  and  even  desperately  in 
love  with  her  from  the  start  there  could  be  no 
question  to  any  woman,  and  least  of  all  to  a 
woman  as  clever  as  Elizabeth  Darrell.  She 
received  a  profound  shock  when  this  was  quickly 
revealed  to  her,  not  by  any  explicit  word  of 
Clavering's,  but  by  all  his  words,  his  looks,  his 
course  of  conduct.  He  knew  too  much  to  ven- 
ture to  make  open  love  to  Elizabeth,  and  in 
other  ways  she  made  him  keep  his  distance  in  a 
manner  which  Clavering  had  never  experienced 
in  his  life  before.  He  would  no  more  have 
dared  the  smallest  personal  liberty  with  Eliza- 
beth Darrell  than  he  would  have  ventured  to 
put  a  stick  of  dynamite  into  the  fire.  He  had 
never  really  been  afraid  of  a  woman  before,  and 
this  of  itself  added  a  powerful  interest  to  Eliza- 
beth. He  realized  fully  the  difficulties  which 
beset  him  when  he  thought  of  his  chances  of 
making  Elizabeth  his  wife.  He  could  manage 
Q  [  225  ] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

a  divorce  from  his  present  wife  in  a  way  not 
known  by  the  poor  soul  herself,  or  by  Anne,  or 
by  any  one  else  in  the  world  except  Claver- 
ing.  That  once  accomplished,  though,  Elizabeth 
remained  still  to  be  won.  She  probably  inher- 
ited the  Southern  prejudice  against  divorce,  and 
it  might  not  be  easy  to  overcome  it.  And  there 
was  General  Brandon  to  be  considered.  Claver- 
ing,  studying  that  honest,  simple,  handsome  face 
across  the  table  from  him,  bent  earnestly  over 
the  ridiculous  maps  and  useless  memoranda, 
remembered  that  the  General  still  cherished  an 
ancient  pair  of  duelling  pistols,  which  he  had 
inherited  from  his  grandfather.  He  had  taken 
these  antique  shooting-irons  out  of  the  old  escri- 
toire in  the  corner  and  had  shown  them,  not 
without  pride  and  reverence,  to  Clavering,  say- 
ing solemnly  :  — 

"  These  weapons,  my  dear  sir,  have  never  been 
used  since  my  grandfather  purchased  them  in 
1804,  when  he  unfortunately  became  involved  in 
a  dispute  concerning  politics  with  a  gentleman 
of  the  highest  character  in  Virginia.  They  had 
a  hostile  meeting  and  shots  were  exchanged,  but 
no  blood  was  spilled.  I  am  exceedingly  glad 
that  the  old  practice  of  duelling  over  trifles  is 
gone,  never  to  return.  But  there  is  one  class 
[226] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

of  cases  left  in  which  a  gentleman  has  but  one 
resource  —  the  duello.  That  is,  when  the  honor 
of  the  ladies  of  his  family  is  impugned.  In  most 
instances  the  transgressor  should  be  shot  down 
like  a  dog.  But  there  are  other  cases  when, 
owing  to  imprudence  on  the  lady's  part,  the 
code  must  be  invoked.  Thank  God,  the  honor 
of  Southern  women  is  safe  in  their  own  keeping. 
But  behind  her,  every  woman,  sir,  of  every 
country,  should  have  the  protection  of  a  man 
with  arms  in  his  hands,  if  need  be.  I  am  aware 
that  my  ideas  are  antiquated  ;  but  I  have  always 
held  them  and  I  always  shall." 

Clavering  listened  to  this  without  a  word  or 
smile.  Nothing  would  be  more  likely,  if  he 
should  betray  his  design  toward  Elizabeth,  than 
that  he  should  find  himself  looking  down  the 
barrel  of  one  of  those  queer  old  pistols  in  the 
hands  of  this  soft-voiced,  gullible,  guileless  old 
Don  Quixote.  These,  however,  were  but  obsta- 
cles ;  and  obstacles,  in  Clavering's  lexicon,  were 
things  to  be  overcome. 

In  the  narrowness  and  dulness  of  her  life, 
Elizabeth  naturally  thought  much  of  Clavering. 
If  she  had  been  asked  at  any  moment  whether 
she  would  marry  him,  should  he  get  a  divorce, 
she  would  instantly  and  with  horror  have  an- 
[227] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

swered  "  no."  But  she  had  seen  enough  of  the 
great,  self-indulgent  world  to  know  that  divorce 
and  remarriage  are  by  no  means  the  impossible 
and  unheard-of  things  which  simple  people  in 
staid  communities  think  they  are.  She  began  to 
speculate  idly,  in  her  lonely  afternoon  walks  and 
in  the  evenings  when  Clavering  did  not  come, 
as  to  what  would  happen  if  she  should  marry 
Clavering.  Whenever  she  caught  herself  at  this 
she  would  recoil  from  the  idea  in  horror.  But 
it  returned.  Pelham's  conduct  had  shattered 
all  her  ideals  of  man's  love.  If  he  could  act  as 
he  had  done,  where  was  the  difference  between 
the  love  of  the  best  and  the  worst  of  men  ? 

This  bitterness  toward  Pelham  was  much  in- 
creased by  the  receipt  of  a  letter  from  Mr.  McBean, 
the  solicitor,  more  hard,  more  peremptory,  more 
insulting,  than  any  he  had  yet  written  her. 
There  had  been  no  trouble  in  finding  Elizabeth's 
whereabouts,  for  although  she  had  not  thought 
fit  to  notify  McBean  of  her  leaving  England,  it 
was  known  that  she  had  returned  to  America, 
and  McBean's  letter  reached  her  promptly.  In 
it  threats  of  legal  proceedings  were  repeated,  with 
an  earnestness  terrible  to  Elizabeth.  This  letter 
made  her  ill  in  bed.  She  called  it  a  neuralgic 
headache,  to  soothe  her  father,  but  in  truth  it  was 
[228] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

a  collapse  from  alarm  and  grief.  It  was  an  emer- 
gency which  could  only  be  helped  by  money  ;  and 
a  large  sum  of  money,  it  seemed  to  Elizabeth 
—  twenty-five  hundred  dollars  to  begin  with,  and 
then  cost  and  expense  which  she  could  not  un- 
derstand added  to  it.  This  referred  solely  to 
the  necklace.  What  else  had  to  be  accounted 
for  nearly  staggered  her,  —  but  where  was  she  to 
get  two  or  three  thousand  dollars  ?  Her  father 
could  not  have  produced  it  had  he  converted  his 
blood  into  money ;  and  the  poor  old  house, 
plastered  with  mortgages  from  roof  to  cellar, 
would  scarcely  sell  for  more  than  what  had  been 
borrowed  on  it. 

It  was  now  the  height  of  the  season,  and  the 
whirl  of  gayety  and  of  politics  made  Washington 
seethe  like  a  caldron.  Carriages  were  dashing 
about  from  the  early  afternoon  to  all  hours  of 
the  morning.  Houses  were  lighted  up,  music 
resounded,  men  and  women  rushed  hither  and 
thither  in  the  race  after  pleasure. 

At  the  great  white  building  on  Capitol  Hill 
history  was  being  steadily  and  rapidly  made. 
One  subject,  not  wholly  political,  aroused  deep 
interest  on  the  House  side  as  well  as  in  the 
Senate.  The  investigating  committee  on  the 
K.  F.  R.  land  grants  had  already  held  several 
[229] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

meetings,  and  it  was  known  that  for  some  reason 
of  political  expedience  the  party  in  power  wished 
the  question  settled  at  the  earliest  possible  date. 
There  was,  among  certain  senators  who  did  not 
really  understand  the  matter,  a  disposition  to 
throw  Clavering  overboard  like  Jonah.  Those 
senators  who  really  understood  the  question 
reckoned  Clavering  to  be  perfectly  deserving  of 
a  long  term  in  state's  prison.  There  was  no  hope 
of  acquittal  for  him  from  the  moment  the  whole 
evidence  against  him  was  known  to  be  available  ; 
and  for  this  nobody  deserved  so  much  credit  as 
Richard  Baskerville.  He  had  been  more  than 
two  years  unravelling  the  tangled  web  of  liti- 
gation, and  only  a  very  astute  lawyer,  with 
money  and  time  to  spend  on  it,  could  have  done 
it  at  all.  It  was  quite  clear  now,  compact  and 
available.  A  lesser  man  than  Clavering  would 
at  this  stage  of  the  proceedings  have  resigned 
from  the  Senate  and  decamped. 

Clavering,  however,  was  incapable  of  under- 
standing defeat,  and  had  no  more  thought  of 
surrender  than  the  Old  Guard  at  Waterloo.  His 
entertainments,  always  lavish  and  frequent,  grew 
more  lavish  and  more  frequent.  Washington  was 
not  big  enough  to  supply  half  the  luxuries  he 
required ;  New  York  was  called  upon,  and  Paris 
[230] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

and  Vienna,  for  rarities  of  all  sorts  to  make  the 
dinners  and  balls  at  the  Claverings'  more  brill- 
iant, more  startling.  Elise  and  Lydia  revelled 
in  this;  Anne's  good  taste  and  good  sense  re- 
volted against  it.  She  read  every  word  in  the 
newspapers  concerning  her  father,  and  she  began 
to  see  that  ruin  and  disgrace  were  threatening 
him  with  fearful  quickness.  Even  Reginald  Clav- 
ering,  dull  and  self-centred,  became  frightened 
and  ashamed.  Not  so  Clavering ;  he  was  not  the 
man  to  "roll  darkling  down  the  torrent  of  his 
fate."  He  would  go  if  he  had  to  go,  with  all  the 
splendor  which  unlimited  money  and  assurance 
could  contrive.  It  gave  him  little  spells  of 
laughter  and  amusement  when  he  thought  how 
much  Washington  would  miss  his  princely  enter- 
taining, in  case  he  should  be  struck  down  by  his 
enemies.  If  that  should  occur,  however,  he  re- 
flected that  Washington  was  not  the  only  city, 
nor  America  even  the  only  country,  in  the  world. 
He  was  not  really  much  grieved  at  the  possibility 
of  leaving  public  life,  although  he  fought  with  a 
gladiator's  courage  against  being  thrown  out.  He 
had  accomplished  much  of  what  he  had  gone  into 
public  life  for,  —  the  making  of  a  vaster  fortune 
than  the  vast  one  he  had  before.  And  then,  that 
new  dream  which  had  come  into  his  life  —  Eliza- 
[231] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

beth  Darrell.  If  he  should  win  her,  as  he  fully 
intended  and  expected,  she  might  not  find  Wash- 
ington a  very  comfortable  place  of  residence.  He 
would  give  her  a  splendid  hotel  in  Paris,  or  a 
grand  establishment  in  London.  He  would  spend 
half  the  year  in  America,  in  the  West,  which  he 
liked  far  better  than  the  East;  and  the  other 
half  he  could  spend  having  what  he  would  have 
called  "  a  great  big  bat "  in  Europe.  He  might 
go  into  European  financiering  and  teach  those  old 
fogies  a  thing  or  two — Clavering  indulged  in 
many  Alnaschar  dreams  about  this  time. 

One  afternoon  in  the  latter  part  of  January 
Elizabeth  went  out  for  her  usual  solitary  walk. 
It  had  been  very  cold,  with  snow,  and  the  ther- 
mometer that  day  suddenly  jumped  into  the  six- 
ties, bringing  a  damp  white  fog  which  enveloped 
everything.  Elizabeth  walked  straight  down  the 
street  on  which  she  lived,  without  regard  to 
where  she  was  going ;  she  meant  to  be  out  of 
doors  only  for  so  many  hours,  and  to  find  in 
the  loneliness  of  a  walk  a  change  from  the  lone- 
liness of  the  house.  It  was  within  a  week  of 
the  time  she  had  received  McBean's  letter,  and 
it  lay  heavy  on  her  heart. 

She  had  walked  but  a  few  squares,  when  she 
heard  a  step  behind  her  which  she  recognized 
[232] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

as  Clavering's.  She  stopped  involuntarily,  the 
red  blood  surging  into  her  pale  face.  In  a 
moment  Clavering  was  by  her  side. 

"  I  saw  you  go  out,  and  followed  you,"  he 
said. 

Elizabeth  made  no  reply.  He  had  never  joined 
her  on  the  street  before,  although  sometimes  she 
had  passed  him  getting  in  and  out  of  his  automo- 
bile or  driving  behind  a  notable  pair  of  sorrels. 
But  this  time  he  had  not  only  joined  her — he  had 
followed  her.  Elizabeth's  sudden  flushing  was 
by  no  means  lost  on  Clavering. 

They  walked  on  due  east  through  the  mist 
which  enveloped  all  things,  the  snow  still  piled 
in  drifts  along  the  edges  of  the  streets.  They 
spoke  little,  but  Elizabeth  felt  instinctively  that 
Clavering  had  something  of  consequence  to  say 
to  her  when  they  got  into  the  unfamiliar  part  of 
the  town,  where  he  could  be  certain  of  being 
unobserved.  The  street,  which  had  been  fashion- 
able as  far  as  Sixteenth  Street,  grew  semifashion- 
able,  and  then  became  a  region  of  lodging-houses, 
places  with  dressmakers'  signs,  and  an  occasional 
small  shop.  Then,  growing  more  and  more  re- 
mote, it  became  a  street  of  comfortable,  quiet 
houses,  tenanted  by  people  to  whom  the  West 
End  of  Washington  mattered  as  little  as  the 
[233] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

west  end  of  Bagdad.  By  that  time  they  had 
gone  a  mile.  They  came  to  one  of  those  small 
triangular  parks  which  abound  in  Washington, 
where  there  are  seats  under  the  trees  and  asphalt 
walks  winding  in  and  out  of  shrubbery. 

Elizabeth,  under  the  spell  of  compulsion  which 
Clavering  had  cast  upon  her,  made  no  objection 
to  entering  the  park  with  him.  Usually  it  was 
completely  open  to  observation,  but  now  the  soft 
and  clinging  fog  drew  a  misty  curtain  between 
the  little  park  and  the  world.  Clavering  led  the 
way  to  a  bench  among  a  clump  of  evergreens,  and 
Elizabeth,  without  a  word  of  protest,  sat  down 
upon  the  bench,  the  Senator  at-  her  side. 

"  There  are  places  within  half  a  mile  of  every- 
where in  this  town,"  he  said,  "  where  one  can  be 
as  secure  from  observation  as  if  one  were  in  a  back 
street  of  the  city  of  Damascus.  And  if  I  had 
designed  this  afternoon  for  meeting  you  and  talk- 
ing confidentially  with  you,  nothing  could  have 
been  better.  The  people  who  live  in  these  houses 
seem  always  to  be  asleep  or  dead,  and  if  they 
knew  our  names,  they  couldn't  recognize  us  ten 
feet  off.  Now,"  he  continued,  "  tell  me  what  is 
troubling  you  —  for  I  have  seen  ever  since  that 
first  glimpse  of  you  that  something  is  preying 
upon  you." 

[234] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Elizabeth  remained  silent. 

"  What  is  it  ?  "  asked  Clavering  again,  with  au- 
thority in  his  voice.  And  Elizabeth,  still  with 
that  strange  feeling  of  being  obliged  to  do  what 
Clavering  required,  told  him  the  whole  story  of 
the  necklace. 

Clavering  listened  attentively.  Elizabeth  had 
tried  to  keep  out  of  it  the  personal  note,  the 
shame  and  disappointment  and  resentment  she 
felt  at  Pelham's  conduct;  but  she  was  dealing 
with  a  very  astute  man,  who  read  her  with  ex- 
traordinary keenness,  and  who  saw  the  good  policy, 
from  his  own  point  of  view,  of  still  further  em- 
bittering her  feelings  toward  Pelham. 

"  I  should  say  that  fellow  Pelham  ought  to 
have  shown  you  a  little  more  consideration,  espe- 
cially as  you  say  he  inherited  everything." 

"Yes." 

"  A  woman,  standing  alone,  is  almost  bound 
to  fall  in  with  just  such  brutes  as  Pelham  and 
that  Scotch  solicitor.  Mind,  I  say  that  you  were 
obliged  to  meet  with  some  men  who  were  traitors, 
all  in  fact  except  those  who  happen  to  be  in  love 
with  you.  Look  —  "  he  opened  his  watch,  and  on 
the  inner  case  Elizabeth  saw  a  Greek  sentence  en- 
graved, /Jie/jiv^a-reiv  aTrurreiv.  "  You  didn't  think 
I  knew  Greek.  Of  course  I  don't.  No  man  born 
[235] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

and  raised  in  my  circumstances  ever  knew  Greek, 
and  I  never  expect  to  know  it.  I  have  heard 
about  some  one  of  those  old  classics  learning  to 
play  the  fiddle  when  he  was  eighty,  and  always 
thought  him  a  great  fool  for  so  doing.  No,  I 
only  had  this  put  in  Greek  to  puzzle  fools  ;  it 
means,  'Remember  to  distrust.'  It  was  a  pity 
that  you  had  not  remembered  to  distrust  that 
Pelham  scoundrel." 

Elizabeth  remained  silent  and  almost  stunned 
at  this  characterization  of  Pelham,  and  Clavering, 
seeing  he  had  gone  far  enough  in  that  direction, 
said  :  — 

"  If  the  diamond  broker  —  pawn-broker,  I  should 
call  him  —  gave  you  five  hundred  pounds  on  the 
necklace,  it  was  probably  worth  fifteen  hundred. 
However,  fifteen  hundred  pounds  is  a  small 
matter." 

"  It  is  a  great  deal  to  me  and  always  was, 
except  for  that  short  time  in  London  when  we 
thought  ourselves  the  richest  people  in  the  world," 
replied  Elizabeth. 

"  You  may,  if  you  choose,  be  one  of  the  richest 
women  in  America." 

Elizabeth's  face  had  grown  deathly  pale.  She 
was  sensible  of  the  dishonor  of  any  proposal 
Clavering  might  make  to  her.  All  of  the  stories 
[236] 


'THE    LITTLE    PARK    WAS    WHOLLY    DESERTED    EXCEPT    FOR 
THEMSELVES." 


MRS.   DARRELL 

she  had  heard  from  the  beginning  about  Claver- 
ing's  intention  to  divorce  his  wife  rushed  upon  her 
mind  —  all  of  her  own  vague  and  haunting  specula- 
tions for  the  past  few  weeks.  She  remained  silent, 
but  every  moment  she  grew  more  agitated. 

Clavering  was  silent  for  a  few  moments,  allow- 
ing the  leaven  to  work.  Then  he  continued  : 
"  Of  course  there  is  but  one  way  to  do  this.  I  can 
get  a  divorce  and  then  you  must  marry  me.  No 
doubt  you  have  a  lot  of  unpractical  ideas  about 
divorce,  but  let  me  tell  you  that  when  a  man  and 
a  woman  are  indispensable  to  each  other  —  as  you 
are  to  me  —  what  does  anything  on  earth  matter  ?  " 

No  one  listening  to  Clavering's  cool  and  meas- 
ured tones  would  have  surmised  what  he  was 
proposing  to  Elizabeth  ;  nor  did  he  attempt  the 
smallest  endearment,  free  as  they  were  from  ob- 
servation, for  the  fog  grew  denser  every  moment 
and  the  little  park  was  wholly  deserted  except  for 
themselves. 

At  his  last  remarks  Elizabeth  attempted  some 
faint  protest,  which  went  unheeded  by  Clavering, 
who  spoke  again  :  "  People  call  me  a  successful 
man.  So  I  am,  with  money,  politics,  cards,  and 
horses.  But  I  have  no  luck  with  women.  First, 
I  married  before  I  was  twenty-one  —  cursed  folly 
that  it  was  !  You  have  seen  my  wife  —  I'll  say 
[237] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

no  more.  Then,  my  eldest  and  youngest  daughters 
—  well,  they  are  like  me  in  some  ways,  that's 
enough.  Elise  has  been  through  the  divorce 
court.  It  cost  me  something  like  fifty  thousand 
dollars  to  keep  the  truth  about  her  from  coming 
out.  Lydia  will  go  the  same  way.  My  best  plan 
with  them  will  be  to  marry  them  to  men  who  will 
get  the  upper  hand  of  them  —  keep  a  tight  rein 
over  them.  So  far,  I  haven't  succeeded  ;  and  I 
am  seriously  considering  giving  them  each  a 
handsome  fortune,  marrying  them  to  foreigners, 
and  getting  them  out  of  the  country." 

Elizabeth's  pale  face  had  grown  red  while 
Clavering  was  speaking.  He  was  close  enough  to 
see  it,  even  by  the  uncertain  light  that  penetrated 
the  mist. 

"  You  think  I'm  a  brute,  eh  ?  No,  on  the  con- 
trary I  have  a  strong  hankering  after  decency  in 
my  womenkind." 

"Your  daughter  Anne  — "  Elizabeth  spoke 
falteringly. 

"  Ah,  yes,  bad  luck  again.  Anne  has  twice  the 
sense  of  her  sisters,  is  really  more  attractive  and 
is  perfectly  certain  to  behave  herself.  But  she  is 
on  her  mother's  side,  and  if  —  or  when  —  I  do  get 
a  divorce,  I  shall  have  to  fight  her,  and  she  is  the 
only  one  of  my  children  whose  opposition  would 
[238] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

amount  to  anything.  You  know  what  a  Miss 
Nancy  Reginald  is." 

"But  —  but  —  how  can  you  get  a  divorce  jf 
Mrs.  Clavering  — 

"  Doesn't  want  it  ?  Well,  I  never  was  properly 
married  to  her  in  the  first  place.  She  didn't 
know  it  at  the  time,  and  I  was  a  youngster  and 
didn't  know  it,  either ;  but  our  marriage  wasn't 
regular  at  all.  I  should  have  got  the  license  in 
Kentucky  instead  of  in  Ohio,  where  we  crossed 
the  river  to  get  married.  So  we  are  not  really 
married  and  never  have  been,  according  to  law. 
When  I  mention  the  subject  to  Mrs.  Clavering, 
I  shall  offer  to  get  the  divorce  ;  if  she  is  contu- 
macious, I  shall  simply  prove  that  we  have  never 
been  married  at  all.  That  will  be  hard  on  the 
children,  and  on  that  account  I  think  there  is  no 
doubt  she  would  agree  to  the  divorce,  if  it  were 
not  for  Anne.  Anne,  however,  doesn't  know  any- 
thing about  the  defect  in  the  marriage,  and  I 
rather  think  she  will  back  down  when  she  finds 
out  just  where  we  stand." 

Elizabeth  listened  to  this  with  horror.  But  it 
was  horror  of  the  deed,  not  of  the  man.  Claver- 
ing's  calm  and  lucid  presentation  of  the  case,  the 
absence  of  hypocrisy,  his  quiet  determination, 
seemed  to  lift  him  out  of  the  class  of  vulgar 
[239] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

criminals  and  make  him  almost  respectable.  And 
then  he  went  on  to  give  his  side  of  the  case,  and 
his  voice  had  in  it  a  strange  note  of  longing. 

"  I  have  before  me  twenty  years  yet,  and  al- 
though I  am  reckoned  a  man  who  can  live  on 
bonds  and  stocks  and  lawsuits  and  fighting  other 
men,  still  I've  had  my  dreams  —  I  have  them  still. 
If  I  could  find  a  woman  who  would  be  a  wife  to 
me,  and  yet  could  be  an  intellectual  companion 
for  me  —  that  would  be  something  that  all  my 
money  hasn't  brought  me.  Do  you  blame  a  man 
for  longing  after  it  ?  Don't  you  think  I  am  more 
nearly  human  for  wanting  it  than  if  I  were  satis- 
fied to  go  on  all  my  life  as  I  have  done  for  the  last 
thirty-five  years?  " 

"Yes."  Elizabeth  spoke  unwillingly,  but  the 
assent  was  forced  out  of  her.  And  whether  it 
was  his  words,  his  voice,  —  always  singularly 
captivating,  —  his  compelling  glance,  or  his 
powerful  personality,  Elizabeth  began  to  feel  a 
toleration,  along  with  a  reprehension,  of  him. 
For  Clavering,  like  all  men,  was  made  up  of 
things  to  admire  and  things  to  abhor  ;  only  he 
possessed  both  in  a  stronger  degree  than  common. 
He  was  much  older  than  Elizabeth,  but  he  had 
not  lost  the  fire  and  vigor  of  youth. 

Elizabeth's  agitation  had  subsided  somewhat, 
[240] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

but  she  was  still  unable  or  unwilling  to  speak. 
The  gray  mist  was  becoming  denser,  and  they 
could  see  the  gas-lamps  studding  the  fast-falling 
darkness  like  jewels  ;  the  sound  of  wheels  and 
hoofs  upon  the  asphalt  was  deadened  by  the  fog 
and  grew  fainter,  the  street  was  quieter,  more 
deserted  even  than  Washington  streets  usually 
are.  In  the  little  park,  with  the  masses  of  ever- 
green shrubbery  around  them,  they  were  as  alone, 
as  little  subject  to  intrusion,  as  if  they  had  been 
on  a  desert  island.  After  a  considerable  pause 
Clavering  spoke  again. 

"  I  saw  you  first,  just  ten  years  ago,  one  night 
as  you  were  waiting  on  the  street  with  your  father, 
for  some  lady  to  take  you  to  a  ball.  You  dropped 
a  little  trinket  from  around  your  neck." 

Elizabeth  started  with  surprise.  "  That  was 
the  night  I  first  met  my  husband  —  and  Hugh 
Pelham.  And  I  lost  my  little  pearl  heart  and 
never  found  it." 

"  I  was  the  guilty  man,"  said  Clavering,  with  a 
smile.  "  I  crushed  your  heart  under  my  foot." 
It  was  an  accidental  joining  of  words,  but  Claver- 
ing wished  he  had  expressed  himself  otherwise. 
The  words  had  an  ominous  sound,  and  Elizabeth, 
after  looking  at  him  intently  for  a  few  minutes, 
turned  her  head  away. 

[241] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Clavering,  hastening  to  recall  his  lost  ground, 
added  :  "  The  day  will  come  when  I  will  give  you 
the  most  superb  diamond  locket  that  the  South 
African  mines  can  produce.  I  will  make  duch- 
esses envy  you  your  jewels  and  princesses  cry 
with  envy  of  them.  I  remembered  you  ever  after 
that  night,  and  a  month  ago  I  met  you.  Don't 
think  people  are  fools  who  talk  of  love  at  first 
sight  for  anybody  at  any  age,  or  under  any  cir- 
cumstances. The  moment  my  eyes  fell  upon  you 
I  was  anxious  to  know  you.  When  I  knew  you,  I 
wanted  to  know  you  better.  When  I  knew  you 
better,  I  became  willing  to  do  anything  for  you,  to 
jeopardize  anything  in  order  to  marry  you.  And 
I  will  give  you  a  great  fortune,  millions  of  money, 
of  which  I  shall  get  very  little  benefit,  because 
you  will  outlive  me  many  years  and  probably 
marry  some  other  man  and  endow  him,  by  gad, 
with  my  money.  I  will  go  anywhere  you  may 
desire  to  live,  for  I  don't  believe  you  would 
consent  to  live  in  Washington.  You  may  have  a 
splendid  house  in  London  or  Paris,  a  great  coun- 
try house,  a  chateau,  any  and  everywhere  you  like, 
and  you  may  command  me  as  no  other  woman  has 
ever  commanded  me.  Now  will  you  marry  me 
after  I  am  divorced?" 

Elizabeth  felt  dazed.  She  had  known  from  the 
[242] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

first  what  was  coming,  but  when  Clavering  put 
his  wish  into  words  it  was  as  strange  and  stagger- 
ing as  if  the  idea  had  never  before  occurred  to 
her.  The  thought  of  committing  so  great  a  wrong 
upon  another  woman,  as  Clavering  suggested,  ap- 
palled her  —  a  wrong  so  vast  and  far-reaching 
that  she  turned  away  from  the  contemplation  of 
it.  But  she  did  not  fly  from  the  temptation,  and 
the  temptation  which  is  not  fled  from  is  the 
conqueror. 

Clavering  interpreted  her  silence  with  ease. 
He  took  her  hand,  pulled  off  her  glove,  and  held 
her  soft  palm  between  his  two  strong  ones.  Five 
minutes  passed  ;  they  seemed  an  hour  to  Eliza- 
beth, frightened  yet  fascinated,  her  mind  over- 
whelmed with  what  Clavering  had  told  her,  had 
promised  her,  had  urged  upon  her.  Through  it 
all  came  the  cry  of  her  heart  for  Pelham.  Had  he 
been  true  to  her,  this  temptation  would  never  have 
come  in  her  way.  And  as  he  had  forgotten  her 
and  had  even  persecuted  her,  what  did  it  matter 
what  became  of  her,  so  she  had  ease  instead  of 
this  frightful  poverty,  companionship  instead  of 
this  dreadful  loneliness,  security  instead  of  this 
perpetual  terror  over  the  small  and  sordid  matter 
of  a  few  hundred  pounds?  Clavering  was  too 
clever  a  man  to  urge  her  overmuch  when  he  saw 
[243] 


MRS.    DARRELL 

that  he  had  a  tempter  always  with  her  in  her  own 
self.  At  last,  after  five  minutes  of  agitated 
silence,  she  managed  to  withdraw  her  hand  and 
rise.  Clavering,  without  a  word,  walked  with  her 
out  of  the  little  park,  hailed  a  passing  hansom  in 
the  dusk  and  put  her  in,  only  saying  at  the 
last :  — 

"I  will  see  you  again  as  soon  as  possible. 
Meanwhile,  remember  you  have  but  to  say  one 
word  and  all  is  yours." 

The  hansom  rolled  off,  and  Clavering,  putting 
his  hands  in  his  pockets,  walked  away  at  a  quick 
gait.  The  expression  on  his  face  was  like  that  of 
a  successful  gladiator.  It  was  not  pleasant  to  see. 


[244] 


Chapter  Thirteen 

THE  next  night  but  one,  Clavering  had  an 
appointment  with  General  Brandon  at  the  usual 
hour  of  half-past  nine.  And  at  nine  o'clock 
promptly  he  was  sitting  with  Elizabeth  in  the 
little  study,  waiting  for  General  Brandon's  return. 

The  first  thing  he  said  to  her  was  :  "  Of  course 
that  affair  about  the  necklace  must  be  straight- 
ened out  at  once.  I  can  cable  to  my  London 
agent,  and  he  can  find  out  all  about  it  and  recover 
it,  for  it  can  be  easily  traced  and  recovered.  And 
leave  me  to  deal  with  the  solicitor  on  the  quiet." 

"  I  hardly  think  you  know  what  you  are  offer- 
ing," replied  Elizabeth,  with  involuntary  haugh- 
tiness. "  I  could  not  accept  money  or  services 
from  you.  It  is  not  to  be  thought  of  for  a  mo- 
ment." 

"  Then  what  are  you  going  to  do  about  it  ? " 
asked  Clavering,  coolly,  in  the  words  of  a  cele- 
brated character. 

Ah,  what  was  she  going  to  do  about  it  ?  thought 
poor  Elizabeth.  Tell  her  father  and  see  him 
turned  out  of  the  only  shelter  he  had  for  his  aged 
[245] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

head  ?  If  only  she  had  been  more  experienced, 
had  known  more  !  She  had  been  so  very,  very 
ignorant  in  those  London  days.  If  Pelham  had 
not  behaved  so  basely  to  her  ! 

Clavering  talked  on,  quietly  assuming  that  he 
would  take  charge  of  the  matter  for  her;  but 
Elizabeth,  after  listening  to  him  in  silence  and 
even  in  weakness,  suddenly  and  impulsively  rose 
and  said,  "  I  desire  you  never  to  speak  to  me  on 
that  subject  again." 

Then  General  Brandon's  step  was  heard  upon 
the  stair,  and  nothing  more  was  said  between 
them.  Elizabeth  remained  in  the  room  while 
Clavering  was  there,  and  he  honestly  thought  he 
was  progressing  quite  as  fast  as  he  had  any  right 
to  expect. 

It  was  now  the  middle  of  January,  and  the 
investigating  committee  continued  to  sit  and  the 
newspapers  to  print  the  proceedings.  This  did 
not  tend  to  make  it  any  pleasanter  for  Claver- 
ing's  family.  Anne,  with  a  touch  of  her  father's 
courage,  continued  to  go  out  and  to  entertain,  but 
it  was  with  an  aching  heart.  To  add  to  her  other 
anxieties,  Mrs.  Clavering  was  very  ailing  and 
unhappy.  By  some  strange  accident  —  for  the 
poor  lady  never  read  the  newspapers  —  she  got 
an  inkling  that  Clavering  was  under  fire,  and  she 
[246] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

often  asked  questions  which  Anne  had  difficulty 
in  answering.  Whatever  love  Mrs.  Clavering 
had  ever  felt  for  Clavering  had  long  since  been 
cast  out  by  fear ;  but  she  had  the  true  feminine 
instinct  which  makes  a  dove  fierce  in  the  presence 
of  the  despoiler  of  her  nest.  Reginald  Clavering 
redoubled  his  attention  to  his  mother,  and  was  of 
more  help  to  Anne  than  she  had  thought  possible. 

It  had  been  determined,  chiefly  at  Clavering's 
suggestion,  that  a  grand  musical,  followed  by  a 
ball,  should  be  given  at  the  Clavering  house  on 
Shrove  Tuesday,  as  a  wind-up  to  the  splendid 
entertainments  for  which  the  house  had  long  been 
noted ;  and  the  undisguised  intention  was  to 
eclipse  everything  that  had  hitherto  been  done  in 
Washington  in  the  way  of  entertaining.  Anne 
opposed  it,  but  Elise  and  Lydia  carried  the  day, 
backed  up  by  their  father. 

Only  Clavering  suspected  that  it  was  likely  to 
be  the  last  entertainment  given  there.  He  felt 
confident  of  knowing  the  decision  of  the  com- 
mittee before  Shrove  Tuesday,  and  he  fully 
realized  the  possibility  that  it  might  mean  expul- 
sion from  the  Senate  on  his  record  alone  ;  as,  un- 
luckily for  him,  there  was  a  very  complete  and 
authentic  legal  record  of  his  doings,  which  Basker- 
ville  had  unearthed.  So  far  Clavering  had  kept 
[247] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

out  of  jail ;  but  there  had  been  more  than  one 
true  bill  found  against  him,  and  even  verdicts  in 
criminal  cases,  which  had  never  been  enforced. 
He  was  still  fighting,  and  meant  to  go  down  fight- 
ing; but  he  devoted  far  more  thought  to  planning 
what  he  would  do  if  he  were  compelled  to  leave 
public  life  than  if  he  were  permitted  to  stay  in  it. 
He  reckoned  that  by  expediting  matters  he  could 
get  the  divorce  granted  and  the  decree  entered  by 
the  first  of  June,  when  he  would  marry  Elizabeth 
Darrell,  go  abroad  for  the  summer,  and  then 
arrange  his  life  for  the  future.  And  while  he 
was  taking  it  for  granted  that  he  could  marry 
Elizabeth,  and  was  seeing  her  in  private  two  or 
three  times  a  week  by  General  Brandon's  innocent 
connivance,  Clavering  had  touched  her  hand  but 
once  and  had  never  pressed  his  lips  to  her  cheek, 
nor  had  she  ever  allowed  him  one  word  of  acknowl- 
edged love-making.  And  this  was  a  woman  he 
was  ready  to  dower  with  millions,  which,  as  he 
grimly  thought,  a  young  husband,  his  successor, 
would  get !  Clavering  concluded  that  some 
women  were  ungrateful.  At  the  same  time,  he 
did  not  seriously  doubt  that  he  could  marry  Eliza- 
beth in  June. 

He  began  to  congratulate  himself  on  his  good 
luck  in   his   constant  presence  at  General  Bran- 
[248] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

don's  house  escaping  notice.  No  one  but  himself, 
the  General,  and  Elizabeth  seemed  to  have  any 
knowledge  of  his  visits,  although  General  Bran- 
don, at  his  club,  did  some  innocent  bragging 
about  the  assistance  he  was  giving  to  Senator 
Clavering  "  in  the  unholy  warfare  against  a  man 
incapable  of  the  smallest  dishonesty."  "Why, 
sir,"  he  would  say  to  any  one  who  would  listen 
to  him,  "Senator  Clavering  has  assured  me,  on 
his  word  of  honor,  that  there  is  not  one  scintilla 
of  truth  in  the  shameful  allegations  brought 
against  him  in  the  public  prints.  Wait,  however, 
until  the  senatorial  committee  has  made  its  re- 
port. Then  you  will  see  Senator  Clavering  tri- 
umphantly vindicated ;  mark  my  words,  sir, 
triumphantly  vindicated." 

Nobody  but  General  Brandon,  however,  really 
believed  this.  Certainly  Anne  Clavering  did 
not,  and  every  day  that  she  read  the  newspaper 
accounts  of  what  had  occurred  and  what  had 
not  occurred  at  the  meeting  of  the  investigating 
committee,  her  heart  sank  lower.  To  keep  her 
mother  from  suspecting  anything,  Anne  pursued 
her  usual  course  of  life  ;  but  it  required  all  her 
resolution  to  do  it.  Every  time  she  entered  a 
drawing-room  she  called  up  all  her  courage  to 
meet  an  affront,  if  one  should  be  offered  her. 
[249] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Not  one  was  passed  upon  her,  but  she  lived  in 
dread  of  it. 

During  this  time  Baskerville  had  gone  every- 
where he  thought  it  likely  that  he  should  meet 
Anne  Clavering,  but  so  far  he  had  not  been  for- 
tunate. He  did  not  repeat  his  visit  to  Claver- 
ing's  house.  He  had  doubted  the  propriety  of 
his  going  in  the  first  instance,  and  he  doubted  it 
still  more  as  time  passed  on.  But  it  did  not  keep 
him  from  falling  deeper  and  deeper  in  love  with 
the  image  of  Anne  Clavering  in  his  mind.  On 
the  Thursday  which  was  Constance  Thorndyke's 
day  at  home,  he  felt  tolerably  confident  that 
Anne  Clavering  would  be  paying  her  dinner 
call ;  and  so  on  the  stroke  of  four  he  presented 
himself,  armed  and  equipped  as  the  law  directs, 
at  Mrs.  Luttrell's  door,  to  accompany  that  re- 
doubtable person  upon  a  round  of  Thursday 
visits. 

After  several  perfunctory  calls  where  Basker- 
ville was  bored  to  death  but  behaved  himself 
beautifully,  he  arrived  with  Mrs.  Lutfcrell  at 
Constance  Thorndyke's  door  precisely  at  five 
o'clock.  Constance  Thorndyke  received  them 
with  the  same  charming  grace  and  cordiality 
which  always  distinguished  her  and  which  was 
powerful  enough  to  draw  within  her  circle,  as 
[250] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

her  guest  on  her  reception  day,  her  husband. 
Thorndyke  never  felt  so  proud  of  his  wife  as 
when  he  saw  her  in  his  own  drawing-room,  and 
she  collected  about  her,  from  the  wide  field  of 
Washington,  persons  who  made  her  drawing- 
room  shine.  He  frankly  admitted  to  Constance 
that  hers  were  the  only  receptions  in  Washington 
which  he  really  enjoyed.  He  was  delighted  to 
see  Baskerville  and  Mrs.  Luttrell,  the  latter  being 
to  him,  as  to  most  men,  an  ever  blooming  tree 
of  delight.  He  came  up  and  established  Mrs. 
Luttrell  in  a  chair  by  the  fireside,  with  a  good 
cup  of  tea  and  with  a  man  on  each  side  of  her  ; 
and  Mrs.  Luttrell  found  herself  as  happy  as  it 
is  given  to  mortals  to  be  on  this  distressful 
planet.  Thorndyke's  conversation  interested  her 
on  the  one  side,  and  Admiral  Prendergast,  a 
superb  specimen  of  the  old-time  chivalrous  naval 
officer,  with  whom  Mrs.  Luttrell  had  had  an  in- 
termittent flirtation  for  not  less  than  forty  years, 
on  her  other  side. 

"  What  a  blessed  comfort  it  is,"  sighed  Mrs. 
Luttrell  to  a  listening  group,  "  to  be  able  to  come 
into  a  drawing-room  like  this  and  have  a  good 
cup  of  tea,  with  some  cups  and  saucers  and  tea- 
spoons that  did  not  come  out  of  a  curio  shop,  and 
some  honest  bread  and  butter.  I  declare  I  am 
[251] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

tired  to  death  of  these  brazen  retired  tradespeople 
who  have  come  to  this  town  and  undertaken  to 
receive  in  their  Louis  Quinze  drawing-rooms, 
and  in  their  English  dining  rooms,  with  a  great 
big  table  full  of  pink  and  green  kickshaws,  and 
candelabra  three  feet  high  all  over  it,  and  a  big 
placque  of  roses  just  like  an  old-fashioned  feather 
bed." 

"  Will  you  listen  to  Sara  ? "  asked  her  dutiful 
nephew.  "She  has  hauled  me  about  this  day 
from  one  retired  tradesman's  house  to  another, 
scattering  compliments  as  she  went,  and  embrac- 
ing every  man,  woman,  and  child  she  met  of  the 
smart  set  —  the  smarter  the  better.  She  couldn't 
be  kept  from  going  with  those  people  unless  she 
were  chained  up." 

"Well,"  faintly  replied  Mrs.  Luttrell,  "one 
has  to  be  a  hypocrite  in  this  world  ;  but  I  do  say, 
Constance,  that  next  my  own  yours  is  the  best 
drawing-room  in  Washington." 

"That  is  indeed  high  praise,"  replied  Con- 
stance Thorndyke,  smiling,  "and  I  am  vain 
enough  to  believe  it  is  sincere,  especially  when 
I  can  get  my  own  husband  to  come  home  early 
Thursday  afternoon." 

Mrs.  Thorndyke  had  never  been  strictly  beauti- 
ful nor  even  remarkably  pretty  before  her  mar- 
[252] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

riage,  but  since  then  she  had  developed  a  late- 
flowering  loveliness  which  was  much  more  than 
beauty.  She  was  happy,  she  loved  and  was 
beloved  ;  she  had  it  in  her  power  to  assist  the 
man  she  loved  without  making  him  hate  her  ;  she 
had,  in  fact,  all  that  she  had  ever  asked  of  high 
heaven,  except  one  thing  —  she  was  childless. 
But  that  one  supreme  disappointment  gave  to  her 
face  and  to  her  soul  a  touch  of  softness,  of  resig- 
nation, that  disarmed  fate.  With  a  tender  femi- 
nine superstition,  she  believed  that,  this  last  gift 
having  been  denied  her,  she  would  be  suffered  to 
retain  the  happiness  already  hers.  Thorndyke 
himself  had  to  be  both  husband  and  children  to 
her,  and  on  him  she  concentrated  all  the  love  and 
solicitude  of  her  nature.  That  he  was  happy 
there  could  be  no  doubt.  In  Constance  he  had 
all  that  he  had  ever  wished  for. 

The  Thorndyke  house  was  one  of  the  few  in 
Washington  which  Baskerville  could  enter  with  a 
clear  conscience  in  the  matter  of  duty  calls.  He 
always  paid  them  promptly  to  Constance  Thorn- 
dyke,  and  often  went  when  there  was  no  obligation 
for  him  to  go.  He  had  some  one  besides  Constance 
Thorndyke  in  view,  however,  in  paying  that  par- 
ticular visit;  it  was  Anne  Clavering  whom  he 
had  really  come  to  see.  Mrs.  Thorndyke  found 
[253] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

means  to  let  him  know  that  Anne  had  not  been 
there  yet  ;  and  while  Baskerville  was  taking  what 
comfort  he  could  out  of  this  Anne  walked  into 
the  drawing-room.  She  looked  pale  and  worn 
and  much  older  than  she  really  was.  Basker- 
ville's  keen  eye  took  this  in  at  a  glance  ;  but 
like  a  sincere  lover  he  admired  her  none  the  less 
for  not  being  in  a  flush  of  spirits,  and  felt  an 
increased  tenderness  for  her.  A  delicate  rosy 
color  flooded  her  face  when  she  saw  who  was 
present,  and  rosier  still  when  Baskerville  estab- 
lished her  in  a  corner,  that  he  might  have  a 
monopoly  of  her  sweet  company. 

Bearing  in  mind  his  promise  to  discipline  his 
aunt,  almost  the  first  words  Baskerville  said  to 
Anne  were  :  "  I  hear  my  aunt  was  quite  imper- 
tinent to  you  the  other  night  ;  but  before  I  slept 
I  made  her  promise  to  apologize  to  you." 

This  was  quite  loud  enough  for  Mrs.  Luttrell  to 
hear,  and  she  promptly  turned  her  smiling,  sharp 
old  face  toward  Anne.  "  My  dear,  he  did,  as  I  am 
a  sinner  I  Well,  it's  a  great  thing  at  my  time  of 
life  to  discover  a  new  sensation,  and  I've  found  one 
in  the  act  of  apology.  Now  listen,  all  of  you  — 
Constance,  make  these  people  stop  chattering  — 
Jack  Prendergast,  be  quiet,  and  Senator  Thorn- 
dyke,  stop  laughing.  Miss  Clavering,  I  was 
[254] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

rather  impertinent  to  you  at  Secretary  Slater's  the 
other  night,  but  I  declare  it  was  those  two  foolish 
women,  Mrs.  Hill-Smith  and  Eleanor  Baldwin, 
who  were  really  to  blame.  However,  I  think  you 
got  the  better  of  me  —  ha,  ha  !  I  always  liked 
you,  and  like  you  better  for  your  spirit.  I  offer 
you  my  sincere  apologies  —  on  condition  that  you 
never  again  make  the  least  objection  to  anything 
I  say  or  do  —  for,  look  you,  Sara  Luttrell  has 
been  used  to  speaking  her  mind  too  long  to 
change.  But  I  apologize." 

At  which  Admiral  Prendergast  remarked 
piously,  "  Lord,  now  lettest  Thou  thy  servant  de- 
part in  peace." 

Anne  rose  and  took  Mrs.  Luttrell's  hand  in 
hers.  "  I'll  forgive  you,"  she  said,  smiling  ;  "  but 
don't  think  I  am  afraid  of  you  —  I  like  you  too 
much  for  that." 

"  I  know  you're  not  afraid  of  me  —  you  and  my 
nephew,  Richard  Baskerville,  are  the  only  two 
creatures  yet  who  openly  defy  me — and  when 
you  join  forces,  as  you  have  done  to-day,  you  are 
too  strong  for  me." 

This  coupling  of  their  names  did  not  lose  any- 
thing by  Mrs.  Luttrell's  emphatic  manner  of  say- 
ing it,  and  it  deepened  the  color  in  Anne's  face 
and  brought  the  light  to  Baskerville's  eyes.  And 
[255] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

as  if  directly  inspired  by  Satan,  the  old  lady  kept 
on :  — 

"  You  ought  to  have  seen  how  angry  my  nephew 
was  with  me  when  he  heard  of  my  behavior  — 
we  were  having  a  quiet  chat  in  my  bedroom 
while  I  was  undressing,  and  he  gave  me  such  a 
rating  as  you  never  heard  in  your  life.  Oh  ! 
he  took  it  to  heart  much  more  than  you  did.  His 
language  to  me  was  something  shocking.  He 
threatened  to  tell  my  age  all  over  town,  and  to 
throw  my  ermine  cape  into  the  fire  if  I  ever  mis- 
behaved to  you  again.  I  never  saw  him  in  such  a 
way  before." 

How  much  inadvertence  and  how  much  malice 
aforethought  there  were  in  this  speech  only  Sara 
Luttrell  knew,  but  it  was  distinctly  disconcerting 
to  Anne  Clavering,  and  visibly  shortened  her 
visit.  Mrs.  Luttrell  went  out  at  the  same  time, 
and,  after  being  helped  into  her  big  coach  by 
Baskerville,  turned  to  speak  to  him  as  the 
carriage  rolled  off. 

"  Didn't  I  do  it  handsomely  ?  Why,  he  isn't 
here  !  "  And.  at  that  moment  she  caught  sight  of 
Baskerville  sitting  by  Anne  Clavering's  side  in 
her  brougham,  then  whirling  around  the  corner. 
Mrs.  Luttrell  smiled  and  then  sighed.  "The 
scamp,"  she  said  to  herself.  "I  remember  how 
[256] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

once  —  "  She  took  from  her  pocket  the  miniature 
which  never  left  her,  and  her  memory  went  back 
to  the  days  when  to  recline  in  that  man's  arms  and 
to  feel  his  kisses  upon  her  lips  were  Paradise,  a 
paradise  to  which  the  gate  had  been  forever  closed 
to  any  other  man. 

Baskerville  had  got  into  his  present  agreeable 
situation  by  simply  not  waiting  for  an  invitation, 
and  furthermore  by  saying  authoritatively  to  the 
footman,  "  Miss  Clavering  wishes  to  drive  out  Con- 
necticut Avenue  until  she  directs  you  to  turn." 

It  was  all  done  so  suddenly  that  Anne  did  not 
realize  it  until  it  was  over ;  but  what  woman  who 
loves  is  averse  to  having  the  man  of  her  choice 
sitting  by  her  side  in  the  intimate  seclusion  of  a 
brougham  at  dusk  of  a  winter's  evening  ?  Basker- 
ville, however,  was  there  for  a  purpose  —  a  pur- 
pose quickly  formed  but  to  be  resolutely  carried 
out.  He  said  to  Anne  :  "  I  saw  that  my  aunt's 
heedless  words  embarrassed  you,  and  I  felt  sorry 
for  you.  But  it  was  quite  true  —  I  made  her 
promise  to  apologize  to  you  ;  and  as  long  as  I  live, 
as  far  as  I  have  the  power,  I  shall  force  everybody 
who  injures  you  to  make  you  amends." 

Baskerville's  eyes,  fastened  upon  Anne,  gave  a 
deeper  meaning  to  his  words.  The  flush  faded 
from  Anne's  cheeks,  and  she  looked  at  Basker- 
[257] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

ville  with  troubled  eyes,  knowing  a  crisis  was  at 
hand.  "  I  am  very  bold  in  forcing  myself  on 
you,"  he  said,  "but  the  time  has  come  for  me  to 
speak.  I  have  not  the  same  chance  as  other  men, 
because  I  can't  go  to  your  father's  house.  I  went 
once  upon  your  mother's  kind  invitation,  but  I 
doubt  whether  I  should  have  done  so  ;  I  can  only 
plead  my  desire  to  see  you,  and  I  feel  I  can't  go 
again.  You  know,  perhaps,  that  I  am  one  of  the 
lawyers  engaged  in  prosecuting  this  investigation 
before  the  Senate.  If  I  had  known  you  before  I 
began  it,  I  would  have  never  gone  into  it.  But  be- 
ing in  it  I  can't  honorably  withdraw.  Perhaps  you 
can't  forgive  me  for  what  I  have  done,  but  it  has 
not  kept  me  from  loving  you  with  all  my  soul." 

Anne  shrank  back  in  the  carriage.  At  any 
other  time  she  would  have  heard  these  words  with 
palpitating  joy  ;  and  even  now  they  opened  to  her 
a  momentary  glimpse  of  Paradise.  But  the 
memory  of  all  that  was  said  and  done  about  her 
father,  the  conviction  of  his  impending  disgrace, 
overwhelmed  her.  She  sat  silent  and  ashamed, 
longing  to  accept  the  sweetness  of  the  love  offered 
her,  conscious  of  her  own  integrity,  but  with  a 
primitive  honest  pride,  reluctant  to  give  any  man 
the  dower  of  disgrace  which  she  felt  went  with 
her  father's  daughter. 

[258] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Silence  on  the  part  of  the  beloved  usually 
augurs  well  to  the  lover,  but  when  Anne's  silence 
was  accentuated  by  two  large  tears  that  dropped 
upon  her  cheeks  Baskerville  realized  that  they 
were  not  happy  tears.  He  would  have  soothed 
her  with  a  lover's  tenderness,  but  Anne  repulsed 
him  with  a  strange  pride.  "  You  are  not  to 
blame  for  what  you  have  done  in  my  father's 
case,  but  I  know,  as  well  as  you  do,  that  before 
this  month  is  out  my  father  may  be  a  disgraced 
man.  And  although  you  may  not  believe  it  — 
you  with  your  generations  of  ladies  and  gentle- 
men behind  you"  —  she  spoke  with  a  certain 
bitterness  —  "  may  not  believe  that  the  daughter 
of  people  like  my  father  and  my  mother  can  have 
any  pride,  yet  I  have  —  whether  I  am  entitled  to 
it  or  not.  I  would  not  take  a  disgraced  name  to 
any  man." 

Baskerville's  answer  to  this  was  to  take  her  two 
hands  in  his.  It  became  difficult  for  her  to  be 
haughty  to  a  man  who  plainly  indicated  that  he 
meant  to  kiss  her  within  five  minutes.  And  he  did. 

Anne's  protests  were  not  those  of  a  woman 
meaning  to  yield  ;  Baskerville  saw  that  she  felt 
a  real  shame,  the  genuine  reluctance  of  a  high  and 
honorable  spirit.  But  it  was  swept  away  in  the 
torrent  of  a  sincere  and  manly  love.  When  they 
[259] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

parted  at  Anne's  door  Baskerville  had  wrung 
from  her  the  confession  of  her  love,  and  they 
were,  to  each  other,  acknowledged  lovers. 

That  night  Anne  and  her  father  dined  alone. 
Elise  and  Lydia  were  dining  out  with  some  of 
their  "  larky  "  friends,  and  Reginald  was  out  of 
town.  Clavering  noted  that  Anne  was  rather 
silent.  Anne  for  her  part  looked  at  her  father 
with  a  kind  of  resentment  she  had  often  felt  be- 
fore. What  right  had  he  to  dower  his  children 
with  his  own  evil  deeds?  Why,  instead  of  ac- 
quiring a  vast  fortune,  which  he  spent  on  them, 
as  on  himself,  with  lavishness,  should  he  not  have 
given  them  a  decent  inheritance.  Was  it  not 
wholly  through  him  that  she  had  not  been  able 
to  give  herself  freely  and  joyfully  to  the  man 
who  loved  her  and  whom  she  loved  ?  With  these 
thoughts  in  her  mind  she  sat  through  the  dinner, 
silent  and  distrait ;  but  she  could  not  wholly 
subdue  the  happiness  that  Baskerville  had  given 
her,  even  though  happiness  with  her  could  never 
be  without  alloy. 

When  dinner  was  over  she  went  up  to  her 
mother's  room,  and  spent  the  rest  of  the  evening 
cheering  and  comforting  the  poor  soul.  After 
Mrs.  Clavering  was  in  bed  Anne  came  downstairs 
to  remain  until  l£lise  and  Lydia  returned  from 
[260] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

their  party.  She  sat  in  the  library  with  a  book 
in  her  hand,  but  her  thoughts  were  on  Baskerville. 
And,  thinking  of  him,  she  fell  into  a  soft,  sweet 
sleep  to  dream  of  him.  When  she  awakened  it 
was  almost  midnight,  and  Elise  and  Lydia  had 
not  returned. 

To  keep  herself  from  falling  asleep  again  she 
took  up  at  random  one  of  a  pile  of  periodicals  on 
the  table.  It  was  a  scurrilous  newspaper  which 
she  loathed  ;  but  the  first  paragraph  in  it  which, 
before  she  could  lay  it  down,  fell  under  her  eye 
enchained  her  attention.  An  hour  afterward 
]£lise  and  Lydia  came  in  and  tiptoed  softly  up 
to  their  rooms  ;  but  Anne  remained  in  the  same 
position  in  the  great  library  chair  in  which  she 
had  been  for  the  last  hour,  still  holding  the  news- 
paper in  her  hand. 

Clavering  had  gone  out  directly  after  dinner, 
and  after  a  visit  to  the  club,  which  he  found 
rather  chilling,  went  to  General  Brandon's  house, 
as  usual  in  advance  of  his  appointment.  It 
seemed  to  Clavering  on  that  evening  as  if  Eliza- 
beth relaxed  a  little  of  her  reserve,  which  was 
at  the  same  time  both  timid  and  haughty. 
Later  he  went  down  town  and  managed  to 
put  up  a  tolerably  stiff  game  of  poker,  and  it 
was  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  before  he 
[261] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

found  himself  at  his  own  door.  He  let  him- 
self in,  and  went  into  the  vast,  luxurious  library, 
where  the  fire  still  glowed.  He  turned  up  the 
electric  light  in  a  superb  bronze  electrolier  on  his 
library  table,  stirred  the  fire,  and  then  perceived 
Anne  sitting  in  a  chair  drawn  up  to  the  fender. 

"Why,  what  are  you  doing  here?"  asked  Clav- 
ering,  good-naturedly. 

"I  wanted  to  speak  to  you  to-night,"  Anne 
replied  quietly. 

"  Go  on,"  said  Clavering,  seating  himself  and 
lighting  a  cigar.  "  Make  it  short,  because  when 
a  woman  wants  to  '  speak '  to  a  man  it  always  means 
a  row." 

"  I  hope  this  does  not,"  replied  Anne. 

Her  father  looked  at  her  closely.  She  had  a 
wearied  and  anxious  look,  which  belied  her  youth, 
and  she  had  good  cause  to  be  both  wearied  and 
anxious  a  good  part  of  the  time.  She  handed 
him  the  newspaper  which  battened  upon  scandal, 
and  the  first  paragraph  in  it  announced  the  forth- 
coming divorce  of  Senator  Clavering  and  his  sub- 
sequent marriage  to  a  Chicago  widow,  nearly  his 
age,  with  a  fortune  almost  as  large  as  his  own. 
Clavering's  strong-beating  heart  gave  a  jump 
when  he  began  reading  the  paragraph,  but 
when  he  found  how  far  off  the  scent  was  the 
[262] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

report  his  countenance  cleared.  It  was  as  good 
an  opportunity  as  he  could  have  desired  to  have 
it  out  with  Anne,  and  he  was  not  sorry  she  had 
broached  the  subject. 

"Well,"  he  said,  laying  the  paper  down,  "are 
you  surprised  ?  " 

"  No,"  replied  Anne,  looking  at  him  steadily. 

"Then  we  may  proceed  to  discuss  it,"  said 
Clavering.  "I  intend  to  provide  handsomely 
for  your  mother,  and  I  dare  say  she  will  be  a 
hundred  times  happier  out  in  Iowa  among  her 
relations  and  friends  than  she  can  be  here." 

"I  hardly  think  my  mother  would  look  at  it 
from  that  point  of  view,"  said  Anne.  She  con- 
trolled her  agitation  and  her  indignation  ad- 
mirably, and  Clavering  saw  in  her  his  own  cool 
courage  and  resource.  "  Of  course  my  mother 
has  felt  and  known  for  years  that  you  had  no 
further  use  for  her,  now  that  her  drudgery  is 
not  necessary  to  you.  But  she  is,  as  you  know, 
a  very  religious  woman.  She  thinks  divorces  are 
wrong,  and,  timid  as  she  is,  I  believe  she  would 
resist  a  divorce.  She  would,  I  am  sure,  be  willing 
to  go  away  from  you  and  not  trouble  you  any  more 
—  and  I  would  go  with  her.  But  a  divorce  —  no. 
And  I  have  the  same  views  that  she  has,  and 
would  urge  her  to  resist  to  the  last ;  and  she  will." 
[263] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

She  had  not  raised  her  tones  at  all,  but  Claver- 
ing  understood  her  words  perfectly.  She  meant 
to  fight  for  her  mother.  He  smoked  quietly  for 
several  minutes,  and  Anne  knew  too  much  to 
weaken  her  position  by  repeating  her  protest. 
Then  Clavering  leaned  over  to  her  and  said :  "  I 
think,  when  you  know  the  circumstances,  you  will 
be  more  than  willing  to  let  your  mother  get  the 
divorce.  We  were  never  legally  married." 

The  blood  poured  into  Anne's  face.  She  rose 
from  her  chair,  and  stood  trembling  with  anger, 
but  also  with  fear.  "I  don't  believe  —  I  can't 
believe  — "  She  stopped,  unable  to  go  on. 

"  Oh,  there's  no  reflection  on  your  mother  or 
on  me,  either.  We  ran  away  to  be  married  —  a 
couple  of  young  fools  under  twenty-one.  I  got 
the  license  in  Kentucky,  but  we  crossed  the  Ohio 
River  into  Ohio.  There  we  found  a  minister,  an 
ignorant  old  fellow  and  a  rogue  besides,  who  didn't 
know  enough  to  see  that  the  license  had  no  effect 
in  Ohio.  And  then  I  found  out  afterwards  that 
he  had  been  prohibited  from  performing  marriage 
services  because  of  some  of  his  illegal  doings  in 
that  line.  I  knew  all  about  it  within  a  week  of 
the  marriage,  but  being  ignorant  then  myself,  I 
thought  the  best  way  was  to  say  nothing.  After- 
ward, when  I  came  to  man's  estate,  I  still  thought 
[264] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

it  best  to  keep  it  quiet  for  the  sake  of  you  chil- 
dren. And  I  am  willing  to  keep  it  quiet  now  — 
unless  you  force  me  to  disclose  it.  But,  under- 
stand me,  I  mean  to  be  divorced  in  order  to  marry 
a  lady  to  whom  I  am  much  attached  —  not  this 
old  whited  sepulchre  from  Chicago" — for  so 
Clavering  alluded  to  the  widow  with  millions  — 
"  but  a  lady  without  a  penny.  Have  you  any 
suspicion  to  whom  I  refer?" 

"  I  have  not  the  least  suspicion  of  any  one," 
Anne  replied,  as  haughtily  as  if  she  had  all  the 
blood  of  all  the  Howards,  instead  of  being  the 
nameless  child  she  was. 

Clavering  was  secretly  surprised  and  relieved 
to  know  this.  Then  the  tongue  of  gossip  had  not 
got  hold  of  his  attentions  to  Elizabeth  Darrell. 
This  was  indeed  rare  good  fortune.  He  spoke 
again.  "So  now  you  know  exactly  where  you 
stand.  If  you  will  let  me  have  my  way,  the 
thing  can  be  managed  quietly.  If  you  oppose  me, 
you  will  be  sorry  for  it." 

"  And  you  mean,  if  my  mother  doesn't  consent, 
that  you  will  brand  us  all  —  us,  your  children  — 
as  —  as —  I  can't  speak  the  word."  Anne  fixed 
a  pair  of  blazing  eyes  on  her  father,  and  Claver- 
ing never  felt  more  uncomfortable  in  his  life. 
He  had  no  shaine  and  no  remorse,  but  he  really 
[265] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

wished  that  Anne  Clavering  would  not  gaze  at 
him  with  those  eyes  sparkling  with  anger  and 
disgust. 

"I  think  you  don't  exactly  understand  the 
masculine  nature,"  he  said.  "  I  simply  mean  that 
I  shall  have  a  divorce,  and  if  you  don't  choose  to 
accept  my  terms  —  for,  of  course,  I  am  dealing 
with  you,  not  your  mother  —  it  will  be  you  and 
not  I  who  proclaim  to  the  world  what  I  have  kept 
quiet  for  thirty-five  years." 

The  interview  lasted  barely  ten  minutes,  but  to 
Anne  Clavering  it  seemed  as  if  seons  of  time  sepa- 
rated her  from  the  Anne  Clavering  of  half  an 
hour  ago.  Clavering  was  unshaken.  He  had 
been  contemplating  this  event  in  his  life  ever 
since  it  happened,  thirty-five  years  before,  and 
had  reckoned  himself  a  magnanimous  man  in  de- 
termining not  to  reveal  the  truth  about  his  mar- 
riage unless  he  was  compelled  to  —  that  is  to  say, 
unless  he  could  not  get  the  divorce  by  other 
means.  But  Anne  had  forced  his  hand,  as  it 
were  ;  so  let  her  take  the  consequences.  The 
repudiation  of  his  wife  cost  Clavering  not  a  pang. 
He  took  no  thought  of  her  patience,  her  years  of 
uncomplaining  work  for  him,  her  silence  under 
his  neglect  and  abandonment.  The  thought,  how- 
ever, that  he  had  admitted  to  any  one  the  illegiti- 
[266] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

macy  of  his  children,  gave  him  a  certain  degree 
of  discomfort;  he  felt  an  inward  shock  when  he 
spoke  the  words.  But  it  was  not  enough  to  turn 
him  from  his  will. 

Anne  sat  still  for  so  long  that  Clavering  did  not 
know  what  to  make  of  it.  She  had  grown  very 
pale,  and  Clavering  suspected  that  she  really  had 
not  the  strength  to  rise,  which  was  the  truth. 
The  room  was  so  profoundly  still  that  when  a 
smouldering  log  in  the  fireplace  broke  in  two  and 
fell  apart  with  a  shower  of  sparks,  the  slight  noise 
made  both  Clavering  and  Anne  start. 

Anne  rose  then,  somewhat  unsteadily.  Claver- 
ing would  have  liked  to  offer  his  arm  and  to  have 
assisted  her  to  her  bedroom,  but  he  was  afraid. 
She  walked  out  of  the  room  without  looking  at 
him  or  speaking  to  him  again.  Halfway  up  the 
broad  and  splendid  staircase  he  heard  her  stop, 
and,  looking  out  of  the  half-open  door,  he  saw  her 
shadowy  figure  sitting  on  the  stairs.  After  a  few 
moments  more  she  went  on  up,  and  he  could  hear 
only  the  faint  sound  of  her  silken  skirts  as  she 
moved.  Opposite  her  mother's  door  she  stopped. 
There  was  no  sound  within,  and  she  passed  on. 

It  was  one  of  Elizabeth  Darrell's  sleepless  and 
harassed  nights.     About  three  o'clock  she  rose 
[267] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

from  her  bed  and  went  to  the  window.  In  the 
great  house  opposite,  Claver ing's  library  windows 
were  lighted  up,  and  so  were  the  windows  of 
Anne's  boudoir.  A  sudden  suspicion  of  the  truth 
flashed  into  Elizabeth's  mind. 

"  His  daughter  suspects  something  —  has  dis- 
covered something,"  she  thought  to  herself,  pant- 
ing and  terrified.  "  They  have  had  a  scene." 

Neither  Elizabeth  nor  Clavering  nor  Anne  had 
any  sleep  that  night. 


[268] 


Chapter  Fourteen 

THE  next  day  was  Mrs.  Luttrell's  day  at  home, 
and  in  spite  of  her  declared  preference  for  small 
receptions,  a  choice  little  circle  of  friends,  tea  and 
good  plain  bread  and  butter,  she  contrived  to  have 
crowds  of  visitors,  resplendent  drawing-rooms, 
and  in  the  dining  room  a  brilliant  table,  glowing 
with  floral  feather  beds  and  sparkling  with  lights, 
whereon  were  served  most  of  the  kickshaws  which 
Mrs.  Luttrell  had  so  severely  animadverted  on 
the  day  before. 

It  was  a  field-day  with  Mrs.  Luttrell.  All  the 
Cave-dwellers  and  all  of  the  smart  set  seemed  to 
be  in  evidence  at  one  time  or  another  during 
the  afternoon.  The  street  was  blocked  with  car- 
riages, lackeys  stood  ten  deep  around  the  handsome 
doors,  and  the  air  fluttered  with  the  tissue  paper 
from  the  many  cards  that  were  left.  The  splen- 
did and  unique  drawing-rooms  were  at  their  best, 
and  Mrs.  Luttrell,  arrayed  in  the  immortal  black- 
velvet  gown,  was  standing  in  the  centre  of  the 
middle  drawing-room,  dispensing  flatteries  to  the 
men  and  civilities  to  the  women  with  great  gusto. 
[269] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Baskerville  was  present,  doing  his  part  as  host, 
helping  out  the  shy  people  like  Eleanor  Baldwin's 
mother,  the  handsome,  silent  Mrs.  Brentwood- 
Baldwin,  who  was  known  to  be  cruelly  dragooned 
by  her  up-to-date  daughter.  But  there  are  not 
many  shy  people  to  be  found  in  Washington. 
Mrs.  James  Van  Cortlandt  Skinner  was  not  at  all 
shy  when  she  came  sailing  in,  toward  six  o'clock, 
with  a  very  handsome  young  man,  dressed  in  the 
height  of  ecclesiastical  elegance.  The  private 
chaplain  was,  at  last,  an  attained  luxury. 

"My  dear  Mrs.  Luttrell,"  she  said  cooingly, 
"may  I  introduce  to  you  the  Reverend  Father 
Mil  ward  of  the  Order  of  St.  Hereward?" 

Mrs.  Luttrell's  handsome  mouth  widened  in  a 
smile  which  was  subject  to  many  interpretations, 
and  she  shook  hands  cordially  with  Mrs.  James 
Van  Cortlandt  Skinner's  protege.  Father  Mil- 
ward  himself  gave  Mrs.  Luttrell  a  far-away, 
ascetic  bow,  and  then,  turning  to  Baskerville, 
began  discussing  with  him  the  status  of  the  Eng- 
lish education  bill.  Father  Milward  gave  it  as 
his  solemn  opinion  that  the  bill  did  not  go  far 
enough  in  opposing  secular  education,  and  thought 
that  the  Dissenters  had  been  dealt  with  too 
favorably  by  it  and  under  it. 

Mrs.  Van  Cortlandt  Skinner  had  felt  a  little 
[270] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

nervous  at  the  way  her  newest  acquisition  might 
be  received  by  Mrs.  Luttrell,  but  had  determined 
to  put  a  bold  face  upon  it.  And  why  should  any- 
body be  ashamed  of  achieving  one's  heart's  desire, 
so  long  as  it  is  respectable  ?  And  what  is  more 
respectable  and  likewise  more  recherche,  than  a 
domestic  chaplain  ?  And  the  Reverend  Father 
Milward  had  been  domestic  chaplain  to  an  English 
duke.  Nor  had  his  severance  with  the  ducal  house- 
hold been  anything  but  creditable  to  Father  Mil- 
ward,  for  the  duke,  a  very  unspiritual  person,  who 
kept  a  domestic  chaplain  on  the  same  principle  as 
he  subscribed  to  the  county  hunt,  had  said  that 
he  "  wouldn't  stand  any  more  of  Milward's  reli- 
gious fallals,  by  gad. "  The  chaplain  had  therefore 
discharged  the  duke,  for  the  young  clergyman's 
fallals  were  honest  fallals,  and  he  was  prepared  to 
go  to  the  stake  for  them.  Instead  of  the  crown  of 
martyrdom,  however,  he  had  fallen  into  Mrs.  James 
Van  Cortlandt  Skinner's  arms,  so  to  speak  ;  and 
he  found  it  an  ecclesiastical  paradise  of  luxury  and 
asceticism,  God  and  mammon,  full  of  the  saintli- 
ness  of  the  world. 

Before  Mrs.  Van  Cortlandt  Skinner  had  a  chance 

to  tell  what  position  the  Reverend  Father  Milward 

held  in  her   family,  Mrs.   Luttrell   said  to  her, 

aside  :  "  So  you've   got   him  !     I   thought  you'd 

[271] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

get  the  upper  hand  of  the  bishop.  The  fact  is 
you're  cleverer  than  any  of  the  Newport  people 
I've  heard  of  yet.  They've  got  their  tiaras  and 
their  sea-going  yachts  and  they  have  the  Emperor 
to  dinner,  but  not  one  of  them  has  a  private  aco- 
lyte, much  less  a  full-grown  chaplain.  You've  done 
something  really  original  this  time,  my  dear." 

Mrs.  Van  Cortlandt  Skinner  did  not  know 
exactly  how  Mrs.  Luttrell  meant  to  be  taken, 
but  smiled  faintly  and  said  :  "  You  can't  imagine, 
my  dear  Mrs.  Luttrell,  the  blessed  privilege  of 
having  Father  Milward  under  my  roof.  He  has 
been  with  me  a  week,  and  every  day  we  have  had 
matins,  compline,  and  evensong.  I  have  had  the 
billiard  room  turned  into  a  chapel  temporarily, 
and  it  is  really  sweet  ;  but  of  course  I  shall  have 
an  early  English  chapel  built  at  each  of  my  houses. 
I  have  plenty  of  ground  for  a  chapel  at  my  Wash- 
ington house.  My  servants  have  been  most  atten- 
tive at  the  services,  and  when  Lionel  or  Harold  is 
absent  my  butler,  a  very  high  churchman,  acts 
as  clerk.  It  is  really  edifying  to  see  and  hear 
him.  You  know  persons  in  very  humble  walks  of 
life  sometimes  possess  great  graces  and  virtues." 

"  So  I  have  heard,"  replied  Mrs.  Luttrell,  ear- 
nestly. 

"I  am  determined  to  take  Father  Milward 
[272] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

everywhere  with  me.  I  want  his  holy  influence  to 
be  shed  in  the  best  society.  It  is  beautiful  to  see 
him  with  Lionel  and  Harold.  I  hope  that  one  or 
both  of  them  will  develop  a  vocation  for  the  priest- 
hood. I  could  do  so  much  for  them  —  build  them 
beautiful  parish  houses  and  everything.  If  one  of 
them  should  wish  to  organize  a  brotherhood,  in 
America,  as  you  once  suggested,  I  would  build  a 
beautiful  brotherhood  house  at  my  place  on  the 
Hudson.  To  give  to  the  Church  is  such  a  privi- 
lege, and  to  give  to  these  beautiful  and  poetic 
orders  which  our  beloved  Mother  Church  in  Eng- 
land is  organizing  has  a  peculiar  charm  for  me." 

"  I  see  it  has,"  answered  Mrs.  Luttrell  ;  "  and  if 
you  have  everything  else  you  want,  why  not  get  a 
domestic  chaplain,  or  a  couple  if  you  like,  just  as 
the  Empress  Elizabeth  of  Russia  used  to  get  her  a 
new  lover  whenever  she  wanted  one  ?  " 

Mrs.  Skinner  gave  a  little  start  at  this.  She 
was  a  guileless  woman  and  never  knew  when 
people  were  joking  unless  they  told  her  so.  She 
had  never  heard  of  the  Empress  Elizabeth,  and 
moreover  she  was  sincerely  afraid  of  Mrs.  Luttrell. 

"  And,"  continued  Mrs.  Luttrell,  "  now  that  you 
have  walloped  the  bishop  of  the  diocese,  for  I  under- 
stand that  he  made  a  terrible  row  about  the  domes- 
tic chaplain,  I  would,  if  I  were  in  your  place,  get 
T  [  273  ] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

an  archbishop  to  preside  over  the  Church  in  the 
United  States.  The  archbishop  is  clearly  the 
next  move  in  the  game,  after  the  domestic  chap- 
lain. One  wants  a  little  elegance  now  in  reli- 
gion, you  know,  and  an  archbishop  is  just  twice  as 
stylish  as  a  mere  bishop  ;  and  in  time  "  —  Mrs. 
Luttrell  laid  her  hand  approvingly  on  Mrs.  Van 
Cortlandt  Skinner's  imperial  sable  boa  —  "  Lionel 
or  Harold  may  live  to  be  Archbishop  Skinner. 
There  isn't  any  reason  in  the  world  why  you 
people  who  have  loads  of  money  shouldn't  have 
everything  you  want.  Don't  forget  that,  my 
dear  Mrs.  Skinner." 

Mrs.  Skinner  felt  that  she  was  being  trifled 
with;  so  she  laughed  a  little  and  moved  away, 
saying :  "  I  see  Bishop  Slater,  the  secretary's 
brother,  across  the  room,  and  I  must  speak  to 
him.  I  think  the  secretary  is  a  dear,  and  so  is 
the  bishop,  so  nice  and  high  in  his  Church  views." 

Mrs.  Luttrell  turned  to  face  an  accusing  mentor 
in  Richard  Baskerville,  who  had  heard  a  part  of 
the  "  trying  out "  of  Mrs.  James  Van  Cortlandt 
Skinner  ;  but  before  he  could  speak  he  caught 
sight  of  Anne  Clavering  entering  the  wide  doors. 
He  had  not  thought  to  see  her  that  day,  feeling 
that  what  had  passed  between  them  in  the 
brougham  would  keep  her  away  from  Mrs. 
[274] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Luttrell's  as  a  place  where  she  would  be  certain 
to  meet  him  ;  for  Anne  Clavering  had  all  the 
delicate  reserve  which  a  man  would  wish  in  the 
woman  he  loves.  Therefore,  not  expecting  to  see 
her,  Baskerville  had  early  in  the  day  despatched 
to  her  a  basket  of  violets  and  a  brief  note,  in 
which  he  asked  permission  to  speak  at  once  to 
her  father.  He  had  received  no  reply,  but  ex- 
pected one  before  he  slept.  Anne's  appearance, 
however,  in  Mrs.  Luttrell's  drawing-room  sur- 
prised him  ;  she  evidently  sought  him,  and  this 
she  would  not  be  likely  to  do  unless  she  were  in 
some  emergency. 

To  Baskerville's  keen  eye  her  face,  glowing 
with  an  unusual  color,  her  eyes,  which  were  rest- 
lessly bright,  betrayed  some  inward  agitation. 
She  was  very  beautifully  dressed  in  velvet  and 
furs,  with  more  of  magnificence  than  she  usually 
permitted  herself ;  and  her  white-gloved  hand 
played  nervously  with  a  superb  emerald  pendant 
that  hung  around  her  neck  by  a  jewelled  chain. 
Baskerville  was  the  first  person  who  greeted  her, 
and  Mrs.  Luttrell  was  the  next. 

"  This   is  kind   of    you,"   said    the   latter,   all 

sweetness  and  affability.     "  It  shows  what  a  nice 

disposition  you  have,  to  come  to  me  to-day,  after 

the  way  my  nephew  made  me  kowtow  to  you 

[275] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

yesterday.  Richard,  give  Miss  Clavering  a  cup 
of  tea." 

Baskerville  escorted  Anne  through  the  splendid 
suite  of  rooms,  each  speaking  right  and  left  and 
being  stopped  often  to  exchange  a  word  with  a 
friend  or  acquaintance.  People  smiled  after  the 
pair  of  them,  as  they  do  after  a  pair  of  suspected 
lovers.  When  they  came  to  the  high-arched 
lobby  that  led  into  the  dining  room,  Baskerville 
opened  a  side  door,  partly  concealed  by  a  screen 
and  a  great  group  of  palms,  and  showed  Anne 
into  a  little  breakfast  room,  which  opened  with 
glass  doors  on  the  garden.  A  hard-coal  fire 
burned  redly  in  the  grate,  and  the  dying  sunset 
poured  its  last  splendors  through  a  huge  square 
window.  Baskerville  shut  the  door,  and  Anne 
and  he  were  as  much  alone  as  if  they  had  the 
whole  house  to  themselves. 

"I  have  practised  a  gross  fraud  upon  you 
about  the  tea,"  said  he,  smiling  ;  "  but  here  is 
a  chance  for  a  few  minutes  alone  with  you  —  a 
chance  I  shall  take  whenever  I  can  get  it."  He 
would  have  taken  her  hand,  but  something  in 
her  face  stopped  him.  She  had  protested  and 
denied  him  the  day  before,  when  he  told  her  of 
his  love  ;  but  it  had  not  stood  materially  in  his 
way.  Now,  however,  he  saw  in  an  instant  there 
[276] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

was  something  of  great  import  that  made  a  bar- 
rier between  them. 

"I  wished  very  much  to  see  you  alone  and 
soon  ;  I  came  here  to-day  for  that  purpose,"  she 
said.  She  spoke  calmly,  but  Baskerville  saw  that 
it  was  with  difficulty  she  restrained  her  agitation. 
"  Yesterday,"  she  went  on,  "  I  told  you  what  I 
feared  about  my  father  —  " 

"And  I  told  you,"  Baskerville  interrupted, 
"that  I  would  marry  you  if  I  could,  no  matter 
who  or  what  your  father  is." 

"You  were  most  generous.  But  you  don't 
know  what  I  know  about  my  father  —  I  only 
found  it  out  myself  last  night.  I  had  an  inter- 
view with  him.  There  was  something  in  a  news- 
paper about  his  divorcing  my  mother." 

"If  he  does  and  you  will  marry  me,  I  shall 
engage  to  treat  your  mother  with  the  same  re- 
spect and  attention  I  should  my  own.  Mrs. 
Clavering  is  one  of  the  best  of  women,  and  I 
have  the  greatest  regard  for  her." 

Anne  raised  to  him  a  glorified,  grateful  face. 
The  poor,  despised  mother  for  whom  she  had 
fought  and  was  still  fighting,  the  helpless,  unfor- 
tunate woman  who  seemed  to  be  in  everybody's 
way  except  in  hers  —  the  offer  of  kindness  and 
consideration  went  to  Anne  Clavering's  heart. 
[277] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

She  wished  to  say  something  in  the  way  of  thanks 
to  Baskerville,  but  instead  she  burst  into  a  sud- 
den passion  of  tears.  Baskerville,  witty  a  lover's 
ardor,  would  have  comforted  her  upon  his  breast, 
but  she  kept  him  at  a  distance. 

"  No,  no  !  "  she  pleaded,  weeping,  "  hear  me 
out  —  let  me  tell  you  all."  Baskerville,  although 
at  her  side,  did  not  perforce  so  much  as  touch 
her  hand.  Anne  continued,  strangely  recovering 
her  calmness  as  she  proceeded :  "  I  can't  repeat 
all  my  father  said  —  I  have  neither  the  strength 
nor  the  time  now  ;  but  he  told  me  there  was  an  — 
an  invalidity  about  his  marriage  to  my  mother. 
She,  poor  soul,  knew  nothing  of  it,  for  —  for  our 
sakes,  his  children.  But  it  was  no  marriage. 
And  last  night  he  told  me  plainly  that  if  I  per- 
suaded my  mother  to  resist  the  divorce,  he  can 
prove  that  she  never  was  —  that  we  are  —  "  She 
stopped.  Her  tears  had  ceased  to  flow,  her  face 
was  deathly  pale  ;  a  heart-breaking  composure 
had  taken  the  place  of  her  emotion. 

Baskerville,  however,  had  become  slightly  agi- 
tated. He  comprehended  instantly  what  she 
meant.  She  was  not  even  the  legitimate  child 
of  James  Clavering.  Small  as  the  credit  of  his 
name  might  be,  it  was  not  hers.  Baskerville,  as 
a  man  of  honorable  lineage,  had  a  natural  shrink- 
[278] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

ing  from  ignoble  birth,  but  it  did  not  blind  him 
to  the  inherent  honor  in  Anne  Clavering  nor  turn 
his  heart  away  from  her.  He  recovered  his  cool- 
ness in  a  moment  or  two  and  was  about  to  speak, 
when  she  forestalled  him  hurriedly. 

"  So,  you  see,  you  must  forget  all  that  happened 
yesterday.  I  thank  you  a  thousand  times  for  — 
for  —  what  you  once  felt  for  me.  If  things  were 
different  —  if  I  were  —  but,  as  you  see,  it  is  quite 
impossible  now." 

"  And  do  you  suppose,"  said  Baskerville,  after 
a  pause,  "  that  I  would  give  you  up  —  that  I  could 
give  you  up?  I  am  afraid  you  don't  yet  know 
what  love  is." 

Their  conversation  had  gone  on  in  tones  so  low 
that  they  might  have  been  discussing  the  affairs 
of  total  strangers.  Baskerville  made  no  attempt 
to  take  her  hand,  to  beguile  her  with  endearments. 
It  was  a  moment  solemn  for  both  of  them,  and  Bas- 
kerville spoke  with  the  calm  appeal  of  a  noble  and 
steadfast  love.  It  was  not  the  sweet  seduction  of 
passion,  but  the  earnest  claim  and  covenant  of 
love  upon  which  he  relied. 

Anne  remained  with  her  eyes  fixed  on  the  floor. 

Baskerville  said  no  more.     He  scorned  to  plead 

his   right,  and  his   silence  wrought   for  him  far 

more  than  any  spoken  words.     His  manner  was 

[279] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

one  of  questioning  reproach,  a  reproach  most  dear 
to  a  loving  and  high-minded  woman.  The  mean- 
ing of  it  came  softly  but  inevitably  upon  Anne 
Clavering.  It  was  no  light  sacrifice  for  a  man 
of  sensitive  honor,  of  flawless  repute,  to  link  him- 
self in  any  way  with  a  woman  dowered  as  Anne 
Clavering  was  dowered  by  her  father's  evil-doing, 
but  Baskerville  reckoned  it  as  nothing  when 
weighed  in  the  balance  against  his  honorable  love. 
At  last  the  whole  beauty  of  his  conduct  dawned 
full  upon  her  ;  Baskerville  knew  the  very  instant 
when  she  grasped  all  that  he  meant.  The  color 
began  to  mount  to  her  pale  cheeks  ;  she  sighed 
deeply  and  raised  her  eyes,  now  softly  radiant,  to 
his  face. 

"  You  are  very,  very  generous,"  she  said.  "  It 
is  good  to  have  known  a  man  so  generous,  and  it 
is  sweeter  than  I  can  tell  you  to  have  been  loved 
by  such  a  man.  But,  I  can  be  generous,  also.  It 
is  too  great  a  sacrifice  for  you.  I  cannot  accept 
it." 

To  this  Baskerville  only  replied  :  "  Tell  me  but 
this  —  one  word  will  settle  it  forever.  Do  you 
love  me?" 

Anne  remained  silent,  bat  the  silences  of  a 
woman  who  loves  are  more  eloquent  than  words. 
The  next  minute  she  was  fast  in  Baskerville's 
[280] 


•TlIE    NEXT    MINUTE    SHE    WAS    FAST   IN    BASKERVILLK's    ARMS.' 


MRS.  DARRELL 

arms,  who  would  not  let  her  go  ;  and  they  had  a 
foretaste  of  Paradise,  such  as  only  those  know 
whose  love  is  mingled  with  sacrifice,  which  is  the 
ultimate  height  of  the  soul's  tenderness.  But  their 
time  was  of  necessity  short,  and  what  Anne  had 
told  Baskerville  required  instant  consideration. 
When  Anne  would  have  persisted  in  her  refusal 
Baskerville  would  not  listen,  but  turned  to  the 
matter  of  her  interview  with  Clavering. 

"  This  is  a  question  which  must  be  met  at  once, 
because  I  believe  your  father  quite  capable  of 
carrying  out  his  threat.  And  your  mother  must 
be  the  first  one  to  be  considered.  What  do  you 
think  she  would  wish?" 

It  was  the  first  time  in  her  life  that  Anne 
Clavering  had  ever  heard  any  one  say  that  her 
mother  was  to  be  considered  at  all.  A  great 
wave  of  gratitude  surged  up  in  her  heart  —  the 
poor,  helpless,  ignorant,  loving  mother,  who  had 
no  friend  but  her  —  and  Baskerville.  She  looked 
at  him  with  eyes  shining  and  brimming  and  laid 
a  timid,  tender  hand  upon  his  shoulder. 

"I  ought  not  to  accept  your  love — but — " 

"  You  can't  prevent  it,"  replied  Baskerville. 

"  Then,  if  gratitude  —  " 

But  when  lovers  talk  of  gratitude  it  means 
more  kisses.  The  pale  dusk  of  winter  now  filled 
[281] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

the  room,  and  there  was  no  light  except  the  red 
glow  of  the  fire.  Baskerville  would  have  asked 
nothing  better  in  life  than  an  hour  in  that  quiet, 
twilighted  room,  nor  would  Anne  either  ;  but, 
woman-like,  Anne  remembered  that  there  were 
some  other  persons  in  the  world  besides  themselves, 
and  made  as  if  to  go,  nor  would  she  heed  Basker- 
ville's  pleadings  to  remain  longer. 

As  they  reached  the  door  Baskerville  said  : 
"  Think  over  what  you  wish  me  to  do,  and  write 
me  when  you  determine.  Of  course  I  must  see 
your  father  immediately.  And  we  must  take  my 
aunt  into  our  confidence,  for  it  is  through  her  that 
we  must  meet." 

Poor  Anne  had  not  had  much  time  for  that 
sweet  trifling  which  is  the  joy  of  lovers,  but  at  the 
idea  of  Mrs.  Luttrell  being  taken  into  any  one's 
confidence  a  faint  smile  came  to  her  quivering 
lips.  "The  whole  town  will  know  all  about  it." 

"  No,  I  can  frighten  my  aunt,  and  she  shan't 
tell  until  we  are  ready." 

Anne's  cheeks  were  flaming,  and  she  said,  as  all 
women  do  who  have  to  face  inspection  directly 
after  a  love  scene,  "  If  I  could  but  get  away  with- 
out being  seen." 

"  It  is  easy  enough  ;  this  glass  door  opens." 

Baskerville  led  her  through  the  glass  door  into 
[282] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

the  garden  and  around  to  the  front  of  the  house, 
where  in  the  throng  of  arriving  and  departing 
visitors  not  even  the  lynx-eyed  Jeems  Yellowplush 
who  opened  the  brougham  door  suspected  that 
Miss  Clavering  had  not  walked  straight  from  Mrs. 
Luttrell's  drawing-room. 

Anne  lay  back  in  the  carriage,  lost  in  a  dream 
of  love  and  gratitude.  All  her  life  long  she  had 
fought  alone  and  single-handed  for  the  poor,  op- 
pressed mother.  She  knew  perfectly  well  all  her 
mother's  ignorance,  her  awkward  manners,  but 
Anne  knew  also  the  patience,  the  goodness,  the 
forgiving  and  unselfish  nature  which  lay  under 
that  unpromising  exterior.  Not  one.  point  of 
Baskerville's  conduct  was  lost  on  Anne  Claver- 
ing, and  if  love  and  gratitude  could  repay  him, 
she  meant  that  he  should  be  repaid.  And  in  the 
coming  catastrophes  she  would  have  Baskerville's 
strong  arm  and  masculine  good  sense  to  depend 
upon. 

She  had  read  the  newspapers  attentively,  and 
she  believed  that  her  father  and  his  associates 
would  be  found  guilty  of  all  that  was  alleged 
against  them;  and  she  knew  that  the  divorce 
was  a  fixed  thing,  not  to  be  altered  by  anybody. 
That  of  itself  might  be  expected,  in  the  ordinary 
course,  to  exile  the  family  from  Washington,  but 
[283] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Anne  doubted  it.  Elise  and  Lydia  would  not 
have  delicacy  enough  to  go  away  if  they  wished 
to  remain,  and  their  fondness  for  the  smaller  fry 
of  the  diplomatic  corps  was  quite  strong  enough 
to  keep  them  in  Washington  when  it  would  be 
better  for  them  to  live  elsewhere.  Reginald,  in 
spite  of  his  weakness  and  narrowness,  had  a  sense 
of  dignity  that  would  make  him  keep  out  of  the 
public  eye. 

For  herself,  Anne  had  determined,  before  her 
interview  with  Baskerville,  that  a  quiet  home  in 
the  little  Iowa  town  where  her  mother  was  born 
and  bred  would  be  the  place  for  her  mother  and 
herself ;  and  she  had  thought  with  calm  resigna- 
tion of  the  change  in  her  life  from  the  gayety  and 
brilliance  of  Washington  to  the  quiet  seclusion 
of  a  country  town.  It  would  not  be  all  loss,  how- 
ever, for  her  path  in  Washington  had  not  been 
entirely  roses.  Washington  is  a  place  of  great 
and  varied  interests,  where  one  may  live  any  sort 
of  life  desired;  and  it  is  not  easy  to  adapt  those 
who  have  lived  there  to  any  other  spot  in  Amer- 
ica. But  now  these  words  of  Richard  Basker- 
ville's,  his  manly,  compelling  love,  had  changed 
all  that  for  her.  She  felt  it  to  be  her  destiny  — 
her  happy  destiny  —  to  live  with  him  in  Washing- 
ton. His  name  and  high  repute  would  protect 
[284] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

her.  She  would  not  ask  of  him  to  have  her 
mother  always  with  her,  although  a  more  sub- 
missive and  unobtrusive  creature  never  lived  than 
Mrs.  Clavering.  It  would  be  enough  if  she  could 
pass  a  part  of  the  year  with  Anne,  while  Reginald 
took  care  of  her  the  other  part,  and  both  of  them 
would  vie  with  each  other  in  doing  their  duty. 
Her  heart  swelled  whenever  she  thought  of  the 
consideration  Baskerville  had  shown  toward  Mrs. 
Clavering ;  it  would  make  the  poor  woman  happy 
to  know  it,  for  this  woman,  used  to  the  bread  of 
humiliation,  keenly  felt  the  smallest  attention 
paid  her.  And  then  Anne  fell  into  a  sweet 
dream  of  delight,  and  was  happy  in  spite  of  her- 
self. She  came  down  from  heaven  only  when  the 
carriage  stopped  in  front  of  the  great  stone  house 
of  Senator  Clavering. 

At  the  same  hour  Mrs.  Luttrell  sat  before  the 
fire  in  the  great  empty  drawing-room,  from  which 
the  guests  had  just  departed.  Mrs.  Luttrell  was 
burning  with  curiosity  to  know  what  had  become 
of  Baskerville  and  Anne  Clavering  when  they 
disappeared  so  mysteriously  —  for  Baskerville 
had  not  returned,  either.  The  fact  is,  while 
Anne  was  lost  in  a  soft  ecstasy,  Baskerville, 
smoking  furiously  at  a  big  black  cigar,  was  walk- 
[285] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

ing  aimlessly  about  the  streets,  his  heart  beating 
high.  He  looked  at  his  watch.  It  was  seven 
o'clock,  and  it  occurred  to  him  that  it  was  time 
to  go  back  to  Mrs.  Luttrell  and  make  provision 
for  future  meetings  with  Anne  Clavering  and, 
possibly,  their  marriage  from  Mrs.  Luttrell's  house, 
if  circumstances  should  follow  as  he  expected. 

When  he  walked  in,  Mrs.  Luttrell's  greeting 
was,  "  Where's  Anne  Clavering?  " 

"  Safe  at  home,  I  trust,"  replied  Baskerville, 
throwing  the  end  of  his  cigar  into  the  fire. 

"  And  what  became  of  you,  pray,  when  you  two 
went  prancing  off,  and  never  came  back?  " 

"  I  took  Miss  Clavering  into  the  morning- 
room." 

"You  did,  eh?" 

" I  did." 

"  And  what  happened  in  the  morning-room  ?  " 

"  I  decline  to  state,  except  that  Miss  Clavering 
and  I  are  to  be  married  —  perhaps  in  this  house. 
Senator  Clavering,  you  know,  and  I  are  at  feud, 
and  the  coming  revelations  about  him  make  it 
very  likely  that  he  won't  have  a  house  here  very 
long "  —  Baskerville  had  in  mind  Clavering's 
divorce — "and  our  meetings,  Miss  Clavering's 
and  mine,  are  to  take  place  under  your  roof,  with 
yourself  to  play  gooseberry.  Even  if  you  are  due 
[286] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

at  the  biggest  dinner  going  at  the  house  of  the 
smartest  of  the  smart  and  the  newest  of  the 
new,  you  shall  stay  here,  if  we  have  to  chain 
you  up." 

"  Upon  my  word  !  " 

"  And  you  are  not  to  open  your  mouth  to  a 
living  being  about  what  I  am  telling  you,  until 
I  give  you  permission.  I  know  your  idea  of  a 
secret,  Sara  Luttrell  —  it  means  something  that  is 
worth  telling.  But  if  you  let  one  ray  of  light 
leak  out,  I  shall  never  speak  to  you  again,  and 
shall  tell  your  age  all  over  Washington." 

Mrs.  Luttrell  looked  at  Baskerville  with  admir- 
ing eyes.  "That's  the  way  your  uncle  used  to 
talk  to  me.  No  one  else  in  the  world  ever  did  it, 
except  you  and  him." 

"  Now,  will  you  obey  me  ?  " 

44  You  are  an  impudent  rogue.  Yes,  I  will  obey 
you." 

44  Then  go  to  your  desk  this  minute  and  write 
Miss  Clavering  a  note  offering  the  hospitality  of 
your  roof  and  your  services  as  chaperon  whenever 
she  requires  it ;  and  mind  you  make  it  a  very 
affectionate  note." 

Baskerville  led  Mrs.  Luttrell  to  her  desk,  where 
she  wrote  her  note.  44  Will  this  do  ?  "  she  asked, 
and  read  to  him:  — 

[287] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  DEAR  ANNE  CLAVERING:  My  nephew,  Richard 
Baskerville,  tells  me  you  and  he  are  to  be  married, 
and  as  he  is  at  feud  with  your  father  he  can't  go 
to  your  house.  Therefore  you  must  come  to  mine. 
I  need  not  say  that  my  services  as  chaperon  are  at 
your  disposal.  I  think  you  know  that  I  am  a  sin- 
cere person,  and  when  I  tell  you  that  I  think 
Richard  Baskerville  would  do  well  to  marry  you 
even  if  you  hadn't  a  rag  to  your  back,  you  may  be 
sure  I  think  so.  And  you  will  do  well  to  marry 
him.  He  is  like  another  Richard  who  died  long 
ago  —  the  husband  of  my  youth. 

"Affectionately  yours, 

"SARA  LUTTRELL." 

"  That  will  do,"  replied  Baskerville,  and  taking 
Mrs.  Luttrell's  small,  white  hand  in  his  he  kissed 
it,  kissed  it  so  with  the  air  and  look  and  manner 
of  the  man  dead  fifty  years  and  more  that  Mrs. 
Luttrell's  bright  old  eyes  filled  with  sudden 
tears  —  she,  the  woman  who  was  supposed  to  have 
been  born  and  to  have  lived  without  a  heart. 


[288] 


Chapter  Fifteen 

ANNE  CLAVBRING  was  engaged  to  dine  out,  as 
usual  during  the  season,  the  evening  of  the  after- 
noon when  happiness  had  come  to  her  in  Mrs. 
Luttrell's  morning-room.  She  was  so  agitated, 
so  overcome  with  the  tempests  of  emotion  through 
which  she  had  passed  in  the  last  twenty-four 
hours,  that  she  longed  to  excuse  herself  from  the 
dinner  and  to  have  a  few  hours  of  calming  soli- 
tude in  her  own  room.  But  she  was  too  innately 
polite  and  considerate  to  slight  and  inconvenience 
her  hostess,  and  so  resolutely  prepared  to  fulfil 
her  engagement.  She  could  not  resist  spending 
in  her  mother's  room  the  half  hour  which  inter- 
vened from  the  time  she  returned  home  until  she 
should  go  to  her  room  for  a  short  rest  and  the 
making  of  her  evening  toilet. 

Mrs.  Clavering  was  not  usually  keen  of  appre- 
hension, but  Anne  scarcely  thought  she  could 
conceal  from  her  mother's  affectionate  and  solici- 
tous eyes  all  the  feelings  with  which  she  palpi- 
tated. Mrs.  Clavering  loved  the  excuse  of  a 
trifling  indisposition  that  she  might  keep  her 
u  [  289  ] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

room  and  be  free  from  the  necessity  of  seeing 
visitors  and  of  being  seen  by  the  army  of  insubor- 
dinate foreign  servants  in  the  Clavering  household. 
She  was  full  of  questions  about  Anne's  afternoon 
at  Mrs.  Luttrell's,  and  the  first  question  she  asked 
was  whether  that  nice  young  man,  Mr.  Basker- 
ville,  was  there.  At  that  Anne  blushed  so  sud- 
denly and  vividly  that  it  could  not  escape  Mrs. 
Clavering. 

"  Why,  Anne,"  she  said,  "  I  believe  Mr.  Basker- 
ville  must  have  been  paying  you  some  compli- 
ments !  Anyhow,  he's  the  nicest  and  politest  man 
I've  seen  in  Washington,  and  I  hope  when  you 
marry,  you'll  marry  a  man  just  like  him.  And  I 
do  hope,  my  dear,  you  won't  be  an  old  maid.  Old 
maids  don't  run  in  my  family." 

This  was  Mrs.  Clavering's  guileless  method  of 
suggestive  matchmaking.  Anne,  with  a  burning 
face,  kissed  her  and  went  to  her  room  for  a  little 
while  alone  in  the  dark  with  her  rapture  —  and 
afterward  purgatory,  in  being  dressed  to  go  out. 
She  had  already  begun  to  debate  whether  it  would 
be  well  to  tell  her  secret  to  her  mother  at  once. 
The  poor  lady  was  really  not  well,  and  any  thought 
of  impending  change  for  her  best  beloved  might 
well  distress  her.  But  her  simple  words  con- 
vinced Anne  that  Mrs.  Clavering  would  not  be 
[290] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

made  unhappy  by  the  news  that  Richard  Basker- 
ville  and  Anne  loved  each  other.  Rather  would  it 
rejoice  her,  and  as  there  had  been  no  time  to  talk 
seriously  about  the  date  of  the  marriage  she  need 
not  be  disturbed  at  the  thought  of  an  immediate 
separation  from  Anne. 

Ail  this  Anne  thought  out  while  her  hair  was 
being  dressed  and  her  dainty  slippers  put  on  her 
feet  and  her  Paris  gown  adjusted  by  her  maid. 
In  that  little  interval  of  solitude  before,  when  she 
lay  in  her  bed  in  the  soft  darkness,  she  had 
thought  of  nothing  but  Richard  Baskerville  and 
the  touch  of  his  lips  upon  hers.  But  with  her 
maid's  knock  at  the  door  the  outer  world  had 
entered,  with  all  its  urgent  claims  and  insistence. 
But  through  all  her  perplexities  still  sounded  the 
sweet  refrain,  "He  loves  me."  She  thought  as 
she  fastened  the  string  of  pearls  around  her  white 
neck,  "  The  last  time  I  wore  these  pearls  I  was 
not  happy,  and  now  —  " 

And  so,  on  her  way  to  the  dinner  and  through- 
out it  and  back  home  again,  the  thought  of  Rich- 
ard Baskerville  never  left  her  ;  the  sound  of  his 
voice  in  her  ears,  the  touch  of  his  lips  upon  hers, 
and  above  all  the  nobility  of  his  loving  her  purely 
for  herself  —  rare  fortune  for  the  daughter  of  a 
man  so  rich,  even  if  not  so  wicked,  as  James 
[291] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

Clavering.  Anne  tasted  of  joy  for  the  first  time, 
and  drank  deep  of  it.  She  was  glad  to  be  alone 
with  her  love  and  her  happiness,  to  become  ac- 
quainted with  it,  to  fondle  it,  to  hold  it  close  to 
her  heart.  She  was  very  quiet  and  subdued  at 
the  dinner,  and  by  a  sort  of  mistaken  telepathy 
among  the  others  present  it  was  understood  that 
Miss  Clavering  felt  deeply  the  situation  in  which 
Senator  Clavering  was  placed.  But  Anne  Claver- 
ing was  the  happiest  woman  in  Washington  that 
night.  Even  the  impending  disgrace  of  her 
father,  of  which  she  was  well  assured,  was 
softened  and  illumined  by  the  lofty  and  self-sacri- 
ficing love  bestowed  upon  her  by  Richard  Basker- 
ville. 

When  she  came  home,  after  eleven  o'clock,  she 
stopped  as  she  always  did  at  her  mother's  door. 
Mrs.  Clavering  calling  her  softly,  Anne  went 
into  the  room.  With  her  mother's  hand  in  hers 
she  told  the  story  of  her  love  and  happiness.  If 
she  had  ever  doubted  whether  it  would  be  well 
to  tell  Mrs.  Clavering,  that  doubt  was  dispelled. 
The  poor  lady  wept,  it  is  true,  being  tender- 
hearted and  given  to  tears  like  the  normal  woman, 
but  her  tears  were  those  of  happiness. 

"I've  been  a-wishin'  and  a-hopin'  for  it  ever 
since  I  saw  him  that  Sunday,"  said  the  poor  soul. 
[292] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  I  want  you  to  have  a  good  husband,  Anne,  the 
sort  of  husband  my  father  was  to  my  mother  ; 
never  a  cross  word  between  'em  before  us  children, 
Ma  always  havin'  the  dinner  on  time  and  the  old 
leather  arm-chair  ready  for  Pa  —  we  didn't  have 
but  one  easy-chair  in  the  house  in  them  days. 
And  Pa  always  sayin'  Ma  was  better  lookin'  than 
any  one  of  her  daughters,  and  kissin'  her  before 
us  all  on  their  weddin'  anniversary,  and  givin'  her 
a  little  present,  if  it  wasn't  no  more  than  a  neck 
ribbon ;  for  they  was  always  poor ;  but  they 
loved  each  other  and  lived  as  married  folks  ought 
to  live  together." 

"  If  Richard  and  I  can  live  like  that  I  shouldn't 
mind  being  poor  myself,  dear  mother,  because  I 
remember  well  enough  when  we  were  poor,  and 
when  you  used  to  sew  for  us,  and  do  all  the  rough 
work,  and  indulged  us  far  too  much  ;  and  I  was 
happier  then  than  I  have  been  since  —  until  now," 
Anne  replied  softly. 

Mrs.  Clavering  sighed.  "All  the  others,  ex- 
cept you,  seem  to  have  forgot  all  about  it."  This 
was  the  nearest  Mrs.  Clavering  ever  came  to  a 
complaint  or  a  reproach. 

And  then  Anne,  with  loving  pride,  told  her  of 
Baskerville's  kind  words  about  her,  of  his  volun- 
tary offers  of  respect  and  attention.  Mrs.  Clav- 
[293] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

ering,  sitting  up  in  bed,  put  her  large,  toil-worn 
hands  to  her  face  and  wept  a  little. 

"Did  he  say  that,  my  dear,  about  your  poor, 
ignorant  mother  ?  I  tell  you,  Anne,  there  are 
some  gentlemen  in  this  world,  men  who  feel  sorry 
for  a  woman  like  me  and  treat  'em  kind  and 
right,  like  Mr.  Baskerville  does.  Now,  you  tell 
him  for  me  —  because  I'd  never  have  the  courage 
to  tell  him  myself  —  that  I  thank  him  a  thousand 
times,  and  he'll  never  be  made  to  regret  his  kind- 
ness to  me  ;  and  tell  him  anythin'  else  that  would 
be  proper  to  say,  and  especially  that  I  ain't  goin' 
to  bother  him.  But  I  tell  you,  Anne,  I'm  very 
happy  this  night.  I  wouldn't  have  gone  without 
knowin'  this  for  anythin'  —  not  for  anythin'." 

Then  the  mother  and  daughter,  woman-like,  wept 
in  each  other's  arms,  and  were  happy  and  comforted. 

The  next  morning  brought  Anne  a  letter  from 
Baskerville.  Clouded  as  Anne  Clavering's  love- 
affair  was,  with  many  outside  perplexities,  re- 
straints, shames,  and  griefs,  she  did  not  miss  all 
of  what  the  French  call  the  little  flowers  of  love 
—  among  others  the  being  wakened  from  sleep 
in  the  morning  by  a  letter  from  her  lover.  Her 
first  waking  thought  in  her  luxurious  bedroom 
was  that  a  letter  from  Baskerville  would  soon  be 
in  her  hands.  And  when  the  maid  entered  and 
[294] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

laid  it  on  her  pillow  and  departed  Anne  held  it  to 
her  heart  before  breaking  the  seal.  Then,  light- 
ing her  bedside  candle  in  the  dark  of  the  winter 
morning,  she  read  her  precious  letter.  In  it 
Baskerville  told  her  that  he  was  urgently  called 
to  New  York  that  day,  but  would  return  the  next ; 
and  his  first  appointment  after  his  return  would 
be  to  see  Senator  Clavering,  for  they  must 
arrange,  for  obvious  reasons,  to  be  married  at 
the  earliest  possible  moment.  There  were  not 
many  endearing  terms  in  the  letter  —  for  Basker- 
ville, like  most  men  of  fine  sense  and  deep  deal- 
ing, did  not  find  it  easy  to  put  his  love  on  paper  ; 
but  those  few  words  were  enough  —  so  Anne 
Clavering  thought.  And  Baskerville  told  her 
that  she  would  receive  a  letter  from  him  daily, 
in  lieu  of  the  visit  which  he  could  not  pay  her  at 
her  father's  house. 

Baskerville  returned  to  Washington  on  the 
following  night,  for  a  reason  rare  in  the  annals 
of  lovers.  The  last  meeting  of  the  investigating 
committee  was  to  be  held  the  next  day,  and 
Baskerville,  having  succeeded  in  exposing  Claver- 
ing, must  be  on  hand  to  complete  the  work.  But 
before  doing  this  he  had  to  tell  to  Clavering  his 
intention  to  marry  his  daughter. 

The  committee  met  daily  at  eleven  o'clock,  but 
[295] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

it  was  not  yet  ten  o'clock  on  a  dull,  cold  winter 
morning  when  Baskerville  took  his  way  to  the 
Capitol,  certain  of  finding  Clavering  at  work  by 
that  hour  ;  for  the  Senator  had  most  of  the  best 
habits  of  the  best  men  —  among  them,  industry, 
order,  and  punctuality  in  a  high  degree. 

Baskerville  went  straight  to  the  committee- 
room  set  apart  for  Clavering,  for,  not  being  a 
chairman  of  a  committee,  he  had  no  right  to  a 
room.  His  colleagues,  however,  on  the  same 
principle  that  a  condemned  man  is  given  every- 
thing he  wishes  to  eat,  supplied  Clavering  gen- 
erously with  quarters  in  which  to  prepare  his 
alleged  defence.  Two  of  the  handsomest  rooms 
in  the  Senate  wing  were  therefore  set  apart  for 
him,  and  to  these  Baskerville  made  his  way.  The 
messenger  at  the  door  took  in  his  card,  and  he 
heard  Clavering,  who  was  walking  up  and  down 
the  floor  dictating  to  a  stenographer,  say  in  his 
agreeable  voice,  "Show  the  gentleman  into  the 
room  at  once." 

Baskerville  entered,  and  Clavering  greeted  him 
politely  and  even  cordially.  He  did  not,  how- 
ever, offer  to  shake  hands  with  Baskerville,  who 
had  purposely  encumbered  himself  with  his  hat 
and  coat  ;  so  the  avoidance  on  the  part  of  each 
was  cleverly  disguised. 

[296J 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  Pray  excuse  me  for  calling  so  early,  Senator," 
said  Baskerville,  composedly,  "  but  may  I  have  a 
word  in  private  with  you?" 

Clavering  was  infinitely  surprised,  but  he  at 
once  answered  coolly  :  "  Certainly,  if  you  will 
go  with  me  into  the  next  room.  It  is  my  col- 
league's committee-room,  but  there  is  no  meeting 
of  the  committee  to-day,  and  he  allows  me  the 
privilege  of  seeing  people  there  when  it  is  vacant. 
You  see,  I  am  snowed  under  here,"  which  was 
true.  The  masses  of  books  and  papers  and  type- 
writers' and  stenographers'  desks  filled  the  room 
in  an  uncomfortable  degree. 

Clavering  led  the  way  into  the  next  room.  It 
was  large  and  luxuriously  furnished  with  all  the 
elegances  with  which  legislators  love  to  surround 
themselves.  He  offered  Baskerville  one  of  the 
large  leather  chairs  in  front  of  the  blazing  fire, 
took  another  one  himself,  and  fixed  his  bright, 
dark  eyes  on  Baskerville,  who  took  the  advice  of 
old  Horace  and  plunged  at  once  into  his  subject. 

"  I  presume  that  what  I  have  to  tell  you  will 
surprise  you,  Senator,  and  no  doubt  displease  you. 
I  have  asked  your  daughter,  Miss  Anne  Claver- 
ing, to  marry  me,  and  she  has  been  good  enough 
to  consent.  And  I  feel  it  due  to  you,  of  course, 
to  inform  you  at  the  earliest  moment." 
[297] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Clavering  was  secretly  astounded.  No  such 
complication  had  dawned  upon  him.  He  knew,  of 
course,  that  Anne  and  Baskerville  were  acquainted 
and  met  often  in  society  ;  he  had  by  no  means 
forgotten  that  solitary  visit  of  Baskerville's,  but 
attached  no  particular  meaning  to  it.  His  own 
pressing  affairs  had  engrossed  him  so  that  he  had 
given  very  little  thought  to  anything  else.  But  it 
was  far  from  James  Clavering  to  show  himself 
astonished  in  any  man's  presence,  least  of  all  in 
an  enemy's  presence.  His  mind,  which  worked  as 
rapidly  as  it  worked  powerfully,  grasped  in  an  in- 
stant that  this  was  really  a  good  stroke  of  fortune 
for  Anne.  He  knew  too  much  of  human  nature  to 
suppose  that  it  counted  for  anything  with  him. 
Men  like  Baskerville  do  not  change  their  characters 
or  their  principles  by  falling  in  love.  Baskerville 
might  possibly  have  altered  his  methods  in  the  in- 
vestigation, but  this  happened  to  be  the  very  last 
day  of  it,  and  things  had  gone  too  far  to  be  trans- 
formed at  this  stage  of  the  game.  However,  it  gave 
Clavering  a  species  of  intense  inward  amusement 
to  find  himself  in  a  position  to  assume  a  paternal 
air  to  Baskerville.  After  a  moment,  therefore, 
he  said  with  a  manner  of  the  utmost  geniality  :  — 

"  Displease  me,  did  you  say  ?  Nothing  would 
please  me  better.  Anne  is  by  long  odds  the  best 
[298] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

of  ray  children.  She  deserves  a  good  husband, 
and  I  need  not  say  that  your  high  reputation  and 
admirable  character  are  thoroughly  well  known  to 
me,  as  to  all  the  world." 

All  interviews  with  prospective  fathers-in-law 
are  embarrassing,  but  perhaps  no  man  was  ever 
more  embarrassingly  placed  than  Baskerville  at 
that  moment.  He  could  not  but  admire  Claver- 
ing's  astuteness,  which  made  it  necessary  for 
Baskerville  to  explain  that  while  seeking  to  marry 
Clavering's  daughter  he  would  by  no  means  be 
understood  as  countenancing  Clavering.  Basker- 
ville colored  deeply,  and  paused.  Clavering  was 
entirely  at  ease,  and  was  enjoying  the  humor  of 
the  situation  to  the  full.  It  is  a  rare  treat  to 
be  enabled  to  act  the  benevolent  father-in-law, 
anxious  only  for  the  welfare  of  his  child,  to  a  man 
who  has  been  trying  for  two  years  to  railroad  the 
prospective  father-in-law  into  state's  prison. 

"  I  think,  Senator,"  said  Baskerville,  after  a 
moment,  "  that  we  needn't  beat  about  the  bush. 
My  course  in  this  investigation  has  shown  from 
the  beginning  my  views  on  the  case.  They  are 
not  favorable  to  you.  I  have  no  right  to  expect 
your  approval,  but  Miss  Clavering  is  of  age  and 
can  make  her  own  choice.  She  has  made  it,  and 
I  have  no  intention  of  giving  her  time  to  back  out 
[299] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

of  it.  It  is,  however,  due  to  you  as  her  father  that 
I  should  speak  to  you  of  certain  matters  —  my 
means,  for  example.  I  can't  give  your  daughter 
the  luxuries,  I  may  say  magnificence,  with  which 
you  have  surrounded  her,  but  I  can  give  her  all 
that  a  gentlewoman  requires.  She  does  not  ask 
for  more." 

Clavering  stroked  his  chin  meditatively,  and 
with  a  gleam  of  acute  satisfaction  in  his  eye 
looked  at  Baskerville,  uncomfortable  but  resolute, 
before  him.  "  My  dear  boy,"  said  he,  "  I've  given 
my  consent  already  ;  and  I  rather  think,  with 
such  a  pair  as  you  and  my  daughter  Anne,  it 
wouldn't  do  much  good  to  withhold  it." 

Baskerville  could  have  brained  him  with 
pleasure  for  that  "  My  dear  boy,"  but  he  only 
said :  "  Quite  right,  Senator.  I  also  ask  the 
privilege  of  speaking  to  Mrs.  Clavering." 

"Mrs.  Clavering  is  very  ailing  —  hasn't  been 
out  of  her  room  for  a  week.  But  she's  the  last 
person  in  the  world  likely  to  oppose  Anne." 

"  I  shall  try  to  persuade  Miss  Clavering  to 
have  our  marriage  take  place  very  shortly,"  said 
Baskerville,  presently. 

"  Certainly,  as  soon  as  you  like."  Clavering  sat 
back  in  his  chair,  smiling.  Never  was  there  so 
obliging  a  father-in-law. 

[300] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

Baskerville  rose.  The  interview  had  lasted 
barely  five  minutes,  and  both  men  were  conscious 
of  the  fact  that  Clavering  had  had  the  best  of  it 
from  beginning  to  end.  He  had  gotten  a  great 
deal  of  amusement  out  of  what  Baskerville  would 
not  have  gone  through  with  again  for  a  great 
pile  of  money. 

"  Thank  you  very  much  for  your  acquiescence. 
Good  morning,"  said  the  prospective  bridegroom, 
bowing  himself  out.  Not  one  word  had  been  said 
about  any  fortune  that  Anne  might  have,  nor  had 
Baskerville  touched  Clavering's  hand. 

The  Senator  went  back  to  his  stenographers. 
He  was  thoughtful  and  did  not  get  into  full 
swing  of  his  work  for  at  least  fifteen  minutes. 
He  felt  a  kind  of  envy  of  Richard  Baskerville, 
who  had  no  investigations  to  face  and  never 
would  have.  He  had  no  divorce  problem  in  hand 
and  never  would  have.  His  love  was  not  of  the 
sort  which  had  to  be  forced  upon  a  woman,  and 
the  woman  coerced  and  overborne  and  almost 
menaced  into  accepting  it.  On  the  whole,  Clav- 
ering concluded,  looking  back  upon  a  long 
career  of  successful  villany,  that  if  he  had  his 
life  to  live  over  again,  he  would  live  more  re- 
spectably. 

That  day  the  last  meeting  of  the  committee  was 
[301] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

held,  and  within  an  hour  the  two  men,  Basker- 
ville  and  Clavering,  faced  each  other  in  the 
committee-room,  each  a  fighting  man  and  fighting 
with  all  his  strength.  Baskerville  took  no  part 
in  the  oral  arguments,  but,  sitting  at  one  end  of 
the  long  table  in  the  luxurious  mahogany-fur- 
nished and  crimson-curtained  committee-room, 
he  supplied  data,  facts,  and  memoranda  which 
proved  Clavering  to  have  been  a  habitual  thief 
and  a  perjurer. 

The  committee-room  was  only  moderately  full. 
The  hearings  had  been  open,  but  the  crush  had 
been  so  great  that  it  was  decided  to  exclude  all 
except  those  who  were  directly  interested  in  the 
hearing  and  those  lucky  enough  to  get  cards  of  ad- 
mission. It  was  an  eager  and  even  a  sympathetic 
crowd.  The  same  personal  charm  which  had 
been  a  great  factor  in  Clavering's  success  was 
still  his.  As  he  sat  back,  his  leonine  face  and 
head  outlined  against  the  crimson  wall  behind 
him,  his  eyes  full  of  the  light  of  combat,  cool, 
resolute,  and  smiling,  it  was  impossible  not  to 
admire  him.  He  had  no  great  virtues,  but  he 
had  certain  great  qualities. 

As  the  hearing  proceeded,  Clavering's  case 
grew  blacker.  Against  some  of  the  most  damning 
facts  he  had  some  strong  perjured  evidence,  but 
[302] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

the  perjurers  were  exposed  with  the  evidence. 
Against  all,  he  had  his  own  strenuous  denial  of 
everything  and  the  call  for  proof.  But  proof  was 
forthcoming  at  every  point.  And.  it  was  all 
Richard  Baskerville's  handiwork.  Clavering 
knew  this  so  well  that  although  perfectly  alert 
as  to  the  statements  made  by  the  keen-eyed, 
sharp-witted  lawyers  from  New  York,  he  kept 
his  eyes  fixed  on  Baskerville,  who  was  handing 
out  paper  after  paper  and  making  whispered 
explanations  —  who  was,  in  short,  the  arsenal 
for  the  weapons  so  mercilessly  used  against 
Clavering. 

The  two  men  engaged  in  this  deadly  and  tre- 
mendous strife,  which  involved  not  only  millions 
of  money  and  a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
but  also  the  characters  and  souls  of  men,  eyed  each 
other  with  a  certain  respect.  It  was  no  man  of 
ordinary  mould  whom  Baskerville  had  sought  to 
destroy,  and  that  Clavering  would  be  destroyed 
there  was  no  reasonable  doubt.  The  last  day's 
work  meant  expulsion  from  the  Senate,  a  disgrace 
so  huge,  so  far-reaching,  that  it  was  worse  than 
sentencing  a  man  to  death.  Apart  from  the 
degree  of  honesty  in  Clavering's  own  party,  it 
was  perfectly  well  understood  that  no  party 
would  dare  to  go  before  the  country  assuming 
[303] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

the  burden  of  the  gigantic  frauds  of  which  he 
was  being  convicted.  And  it  was  due  to  Basker- 
ville  that  the  evidence  to  convict  had  been  found. 
All  that  the  other  lawyers  had  done  was  insig- 
nificant beside  the  two  years  of  patient  research, 
the  disentangling  of  a  thousand  complicated  legal 
threads,  which  was  Baskerville's  work.  Some  of 
the  evidence  he  presented  had  been  collected  in 
the  wildest  parts  of  the  West  and  South  at  the 
imminent  risk  of  his  life  ;  all  of  it  had  required 
vast  labor  and  learning. 

Being  a  natural  lover  of  fighting,  Baskerville 
in  the  beginning  had  taken  a  purely  human  in- 
terest in  tracking  this  man  down  and  had  thought 
himself  engaged  in  a  righteous  work  in  driving 
him  out  of  public  life.  He  still  knew  he  was 
right  in  doing  this,  but  it  had  long  since  become 
a  painful  and  irksome  task  to  him.  He  had  come 
to  love  this  man's  daughter,  of  all  the  women  in 
the  world,  —  to  love  her  so  well  and  to  confide  in 
her  so  truly  that  not  even  her  parentage  could 
keep  him  from  marrying  her.  But  he  knew  that 
he  was  stabbing  her  to  the  heart.  She  had  for- 
given him  in  advance  ;  like  him,  love  and  sacrifice 
had  asserted  their  rights  and  reigned  in  their 
kingdom,  but  that  she  must  suffer  a  cruel  abase- 
ment for  her  father's  iniquities  Baskerville  knew. 
[304] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

And,  with  this  knowledge,  nothing  but  his  sense 
of  duty  and  honor  kept  him  at  his  post. 

The  committee  sat  from  eleven  in  the  morning 
until  two  in  the  afternoon.  Then,  after  a  short 
adjournment,  it  met  again.  It  sat  again,  with 
another  short  recess,  until  nearly  nine  o'clock, 
and  a  final  adjournment  was  reached  at  midnight. 
Not  a  person  of  those  entitled  to  be  present  had 
left  the  room,  during  that  long  and  trying  stretch 
of  hours.  All  were  acting  a  part  in  a  great 
tragedy,  a  tragedy  of  which  the  last  act  was  to 
take  place  in  the  United  States  Senate  chamber, 
and  was  to  be  one  of  the  most  fearful  ever 
enacted  in  that  historic  spot.  Clavering  had 
gone  down  fighting.  The  committee  recognized 
as  much,  and  when,  in  the  midst  of  a  deep  silence, 
the  chairman  declared  the  meeting  adjourned  and 
Clavering  rose  to  go,  every  man  present,  acting 
involuntarily  and  quite  unconscious  of  what  he 
was  doing,  rose  as  if  to  do  honor  to  the  man 
whose  infamy  had  been  proved  before  them.  A 
line  was  made  for  Clavering,  and  he  passed  out 
of  the  room.  It  was  as  if  his  crimes  were  so  great, 
his  audacity  so  huge,  his  courage  so  vast  and 
unquenchable,  that  they  saluted  him,  as  a  firing 
squad  salutes  a  guilty  officer  condemned  to  be 
shot. 

x  [  305  ] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

When  James  Clavering  walked  out  into  the 
sharp  January  night,  the  Capitol  behind  him 
showing  whitely  in  the  gleaming  of  the  multi- 
tude of  stars,  he  knew  himself  a  beaten  and  ruined 
man,  beaten  and  ruined  by  two  men  —  James  Clav- 
ering and  Richard  Baskerville. 

Baskerville  determined  to  walk  the  long  stretch 
between  the  Capitol  and  his  own  house ;  he  wanted 
the  fresh  air  and  the  solitude,  in  order  to  recover 
himself  —  for  he,  too,  had  been  under  a  terrific 
strain.  As  he  walked  rapidly  down  the  hill  Clav- 
ering's  carriage  passed  him  —  the  same  brougham 
in  which  Baskerville  had  told  Anne  Clavering  of 
his  love.  An  electric  lamp  shone  for  a  moment 
into  the  carriage  and  revealed  Clavering  sitting 
upright,  his  head  raised,  his  fists  clenched  ;  he  was 
a  fighting  man  to  the  last. 


[306] 


Chapter  Sixteen 

IT  was  the  gayest  season  Washington  had  ever 
known.  There  was  a  continuous  round  of  enter- 
taining at  the  White  House,  unofficial  as  well  as 
official.  The  different  embassies  vied  with  one 
another  in  the  number  and  splendor  of  their 
festivities ;  and  the  smart  set  entered  into  a 
merry  war  among  themselves  as  to  which  should 
throw  open  their  doors  oftenest,  collect  the  largest 
number  of  guests,  and  make  the  most  lavish  and 
overpowering  display  of  luxury. 

The  Claverings  did  their  part,  chiefly  en- 
gineered by  Clavering  himself,  and  abetted  by 
Elise  and  Lydia,  Clavering  had  good  reason 
to  suspect  that  the  report  of  the  investigating 
committee  would  be  ready  within  the  month. 
It  was  now  the  middle  of  January.  Shrove 
Tuesday  came  on  the  fourteenth  of  February, 
St.  Valentine's  Day,  and  this  was  the  evening 
selected  for  the  grand  ball  and  musical  which 
were  to  complete  the  season.  Other  musicals 
had  been  given  in  Washington,  but  none  like 
this;  other  balls,  but  this  was  meant  to  surpass 
[307] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

them  all.  It  had  heretofore  been  enough  to  get 
artists  from  the  Metropolitan  Opera  in  New  York ; 
it  remained  for  Clavering  to  import  a  couple  of 
singers  from  Paris  for  the  one  occasion.  A  Hun- 
garian band,  touring  America,  was  held  over  a 
steamer  in  order  to  come  to  Washington  and  play 
at  the  ball.  The  shops  of  Vienna  were  ransacked 
for  favors  for  the  cotillon ;  and  the  champagne  to 
be  served  came  from  a  king's  cellars. 

All  this  Anne  Clavering  regarded  with  disgust 
and  aversion.  She  felt  sure  that  her  father  was 
soon  to  be  hurled  from  public  life,  and  deservedly 
so.  Her  mother's  health  was  giving  her  grave 
alarm.  She  was  at  all  times  opposed  to  the  excess 
of  luxury  and  fashion  which  delighted  the  pagan 
souls  of  Elise  and  Lydia,  and  now  it  was  an  addi- 
tional mortification  to  her  on  Baskerville's  ac- 
count. He,  she  felt  convinced,  was  conscious 
of  the  brazen  effrontery,  the  shocking  bad  taste, 
of  it  all,  and  considerate  as  he  was  in  not  speak- 
ing of  it,  her  soul  was  filled  with  shame  to  suppose 
what  he  thought.  She  began  to  hate  the  lavish 
luxury  in  which  she  dwelt,  and  looked  forward 
eagerly  to  the  time  when  she  could  live  modestly 
and  quietly  in  a  house  not  so  grand  as  to  excite 
the  transports  of  all  the  society  correspondents 
who  got  a  sight  of  its  stupendous  splendors. 
[308] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

Mrs.  Clavering's  illness,  though  slight,  con- 
tinued, and  gave  Anne  a  very  good  excuse  for 
withdrawing  somewhat  from  general  society. 
And  it  also  gave  her  time  for  those  charming 
meetings  at  Mrs.  Luttrell's  house,  where  she  and 
Richard  Baskerville  tasted  the  true  joy  of  living. 
Mrs.  Luttrell  nobly  redeemed  her  promise,  and 
would  have  sent  every  day  for  Anne  to  come  to 
tea.  As  Mrs.  Luttrell  did  not  often  dine  at  home 
without  guests,  the  best  tete-a-tete  she  could  offer 
the  lovers  was  tea  in  the  little  morning-room  by 
the  firelight.  But  Anne,  with  natural  modesty, 
did  not  always  accept  Mrs.  Luttrell's  urgent 
invitations.  When  she  did,  however,  she  and 
Baskerville  always  had  an  enchanted  hour  to 
themselves  in  the  dusk,  while  Mrs.  Luttrell  con- 
siderately disappeared,  to  take  the  half  hour's 
beauty  sleep  which  she  declared  essential,  during 
some  part  of  every  day,  for  the  preservation  of 
her  charms. 

The  lovers  also  met  more  than  once  at  the 
Thorndykes',  at  little  dinners  d  quatre.  Mrs. 
Thorndyke  would  write  a  note  to  Anne,  asking 
her  on  various  pleas  to  come  and  dine  with  Thorn- 
dyke  and  herself ;  and  as  soon  as  Anne  had 
accepted  there  would  be  a  frantic  call  over  the 
telephone  for  Thorndyke,  in  which  Mrs.  Thorn- 
[309] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

dyke  would  direct  him  at  the  peril  of  his  life  to 
go  immediately  in  search  of  Baskerville  and  to 
bring  him  home  to  dinner.  And  Thorndyke, 
like  the  obedient  American  husband,  would  do 
as  he  was  bidden,  and  produce  Baskerville  with 
great  punctuality.  How  far  Constance  Thorn- 
dyke's  own  acute  perceptions  were  accountable 
for  this,  and  how  far  Mrs.  Luttrell's  incurable 
propensity  for  taking  the  world  into  her  confi- 
dence, nobody  could  tell.  At  all  events,  it  made 
four  people  happy;  and  if  anything  could  have 
made  Baskerville  and  Anne  more  in  love  with 
the  ideal  of  marriage  it  was  to  see  the  serene 
happiness,  the  charming  home  life,  of  Senator 
and  Mrs.  Thorndyke. 

Baskerville  had  not  ceased  to  press  for  an  early 
date  for  his  marriage,  but  Mrs.  Clavering's  indis- 
position and  the  position  of  Clavering's  affairs 
deferred  the  actual  making  of  the  arrangements. 
It  was  to  be  a  very  simple  wedding,  Anne  stipu- 
lated ;  and  Baskerville,  with  more  than  the  aver- 
age man's  dread  of  a  ceremony  full  of  display, 
agreed  promptly.  Some  morning,  when  Mrs. 
Clavering  was  well,  Anne  and  he  would  be 
quietly  married,  go  from  the  church  to  the  train, 
and  after  a  few  days  return  to  Baskerville's  house. 
And  Anne  promised  herself,  and  got  Baskerville 
[310] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

to  promise  her,  the  indulgence  of  a  quiet  domestic 
life  —  a  thing  she  had  not  known  since  the  golden 
shower  descended  upon  James  Clavering. 

Clavering  had  said  nothing  to  Anne  in  regard 
to  Baskerville's  interview  with  him,  nor  had  the 
father  and  daughter  exchanged  one  word  with 
each  other,  beyond  the  ordinary  civilities  of  life, 
since  that  midnight  conversation  in  which  Mr. 
Clavering  had  announced  his  intention  of  getting 
a  divorce.  Neither  had  he  said  anything  to  Mrs. 
Clavering,  and  his  plans  were  entirely  unknown 
to  his  family.  By  extraordinary  good  fortune 
not  the  smallest  suspicion  fell  on  the  pale,  hand- 
some, silent  Mrs.  Darrell  across  the  way,  with  her 
widow's  veil  thrown  back  from  her  graceful  head. 

In  those  weeks,  when  Anne  Clavering  saw  as 
little  of  the  world  as  she  could,  she  occasionally 
took  quiet  and  solitary  walks  in  which  Basker- 
ville  would  gladly  have  joined  her.  But  Anne, 
with  the  over-delicacy  of  one  who  might  be  open 
to  the  suspicion  of  not  being  delicate  enough, 
would  not  agree  to  see  him  except  under  the 
chaperonage  of  Mrs.  Luttrell.  And  twice  in 
those  solitary  walks  she  met  Elizabeth  Darrell, 
also  alone.  Both  women  regarded  each  other 
curiously,  meanwhile  averting  their  eyes. 

Anne  knew  quite  well  who  Elizabeth  was,  and 
[311] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

at  their  second  meeting,  which  was  quite  close  to 
Elizabeth's  door,  Anne  was  moved  by  the  true 
spirit  of  courtesy  and  neighborly  kindness  to  speak 
to  her.  She  said,  with  a  pleasant  bow  and  smile  : 
"This,  I  believe,  is  Mrs.  Darrell,  our  neighbor, 
and  I  am  Miss  Clavering.  I  have  the  pleasure  of 
knowing  your  father,  General  Brandon." 

Elizabeth  received  this  advance  with  such  ap- 
parent haughtiness  that  Anne,  her  face  flushing, 
made  some  casual  remark  and  went  into  her  own 
house.  In  truth  Elizabeth  was  frightened  and 
surprised  beyond  measure,  and  felt  herself  so 
guilty  that  she  knew  not  where  to  look  or  what 
to  say,  and  literally  fled  from  the  sight  of  James 
Clavering's  innocent  daughter  as  if  she  had  been 
an  accusing  conscience. 

Meanwhile  the  preparations  for  the  grand  St. 
Valentine's  musical  and  ball  went  gayly  on. 
Clavering  himself  showed  unwonted  interest  in  it. 
He  was  as  insensible  of  public  approval  or  disap- 
proval as  any  man  well  could  be  ;  nevertheless,  he 
hoped  that  the  report  of  the  investigating  com- 
mittee would  not  be  made  public  until  after  the 
great  function  on  Shrove  Tuesday.  It  pleased 
his  fancy  for  the  spectacular  to  think  that  the  last 
entertainment  he  gave  in  Washington  —  for  he 
well  knew  it  would  be  the  last  —  should  be  full 
[312] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

of  gorgeous  splendor,  so  superbly  unique  that  it 
would  be  remembered  for  a  decade. 

He  told  this  to  Elizabeth  Darrell,  for  although 
the  investigation  was  closed  Clavering  trumped 
up  some  specious  requests  for  more  of  General 
Brandon's  information  and  assistance  on  certain 
alleged  general  points,  and  by  this  means  still 
contrived  to  see  Elizabeth  once  or  twice  a  week. 
He  tried  to  persuade  Elizabeth  to  come  to  the 
grand  festivity,  and  was  deeply  in  earnest  in  his 
effort.  He  counted  on  its  effect  upon  her  when 
he  should  tell  her  that  she  could  have  similar 
entertainments  whenever  she  liked,  in  a  much 
larger  and  more  splendid  city  than  Washington  — 
London  or  Paris,  for  example. 

Elizabeth,  however,  recoiled  with  something 
like  horror  from  the  idea  of  going  to  Clavering's 
house  and  being  hospitably  received  by  his  wife 
and  daughters  ;  for  she  had  reached  the  point 
when  Clavering's  bribes  —  for  so  his  love-making 
might  be  considered  —  were  always  in  her  mind. 
At  one  time  she  would  feel  so  oppressed  with  her 
loneliness,  her  poverty,  her  disappointments,  that 
she  would  be  almost  eager  for  the  splendid  destiny 
which  Clavering  offered  her  ;  at  another  time  she 
would  shrink  from  it  with  horror  of  it  and  horror 
of  herself.  All  her  social  and  religious  prejudices 
[313] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

were  against  divorce  and  were  strong  enough  to 
have  kept  her  from  marrying  Clavering  if  he  had 
ever  really  been  married  to  Mrs.  Clavering,  but 
as  he  had  never  been  married  to  her  no  moral 
obligation  existed.  Elizabeth  would  also  have 
been  incapable  of  the  meanness,  the  iniquity,  of 
taking  Clavering  away  from  another  woman  who 
had  a  much  better  right  to  him  than  she  ;  only 
she  knew  that  Mrs.  Clavering  would  suffer 
nothing  in  parting  with  Clavering.  The  feeling 
that  his  children  might  be  wounded  made  no 
strong  appeal  to  Elizabeth. 

However,  Clavering's  best  argument  —  his  stu- 
pendous wealth  —  was  always  in  some  form  before 
her  eyes.  Every  time  she  went  out  of  doors,  or 
even  looked  out  of  her  window,  she  saw  the  evi- 
dences of  Clavering's  fortune  —  his  magnificent 
house,  his  army  of  servants,  his  superb  equi- 
pages, his  automobiles  of  every  description.  She 
could  not  get  away  from  it,  and  it  made  her  own 
shabby  home  seem  the  shabbier  and  the  narrower 
every  day  she  lived  in  it.  Moreover,  she  was  at 
that  dangerous  age  when  a  woman  is  brought  face 
to  face  with  her  destmy;  when  she  is  forced  to 
say  good-by  to  her  girlhood  and  to  reckon  upon 
life  without  first  youth  or  first  love. 

And  after  Hugh  Pelham's  behavior,  why  should 
[314] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

she  reckon  on  love  at  all?  Was  there  such  a 
thing  as  love  ?  He  had  apparently  loved  her  with 
the  noblest  love  ;  it  had  lasted  many  years,  and 
finally,  in  a  day,  in  an  hour,  for  the  merest  paltry 
consideration  of  money,  he  had  not  only  forgotten 
her,  he  had  persecuted  her.  If  it  were  not  her 
fate  to  know  the  very  ultimate  sweetness  of  love, 
at  least  she  might  have  known  its  consolation. 
Now  that  Pelham  was  lost  to  her  she  began  to 
think  reproachfully,  as  women  will,  of  what  he 
might  have  done  for  her.  If  he  had  been  true  to 
her,  or  even  decent  to  her,  she  would  never  have 
been  in  those  desperate  straits  in  London  ;  she 
would  never  have  been  in  her  present  cruel  posi- 
tion, for  the  instant  her  father  knew  of  her  em- 
barrassments she  knew  he  would  sell  the  roof  over 
his  head  to  pay  back  the  debt ;  and  she  would 
never  have  dreamed  of  marrying  Clavering.  All 
these  troubles  came  from  her  having  believed  in 
love  —  and  perhaps  there  was  no  such  thing,  after 
all.  But  in  thinking  of  marrying  Clavering  and 
exchanging  her  present  miserable  existence  for 
that  promised  dazzling  London  life,  a  shadow 
would  fall  across  it  —  Hugh  Pelham's  shadow. 
How  would  she  face  him  ?  How  could  she  con- 
ceal from  him  that  she  had  sold  herself  to  this 
man  ?  And  how  could  she  visit  him  with  the 
[315] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

scorn  he  deserved  if  she  had  so  easily  bartered 
herself  away? 

Clavering  saw  the  conflict  in  Elizabeth's  mind, 
and  it  gave  him  a  species  of  sardonic  amusement 
at  his  own  expense.  Here  he  was,  ready  to  sacri- 
fice so  much  for  this  woman  who  had  nothing, 
who  could  scarcely  be  brought  to  look  upon  what 
he  offered  her,  and  who  had  kept  him  at  such  a 
distance  that  he  had  but  once  touched  her  hand  in 
private.  He  felt  himself  in  many  ways  at  a  disad- 
vantage with  Elizabeth  Darrell.  He  was,  like  all 
men,  brought  up  in  humble  surroundings,  unused 
to  clever  and  highly  organized  women,  and  he  did 
not  exactly  know  how  to  appeal  to  such  women 
or  how  to  classify  them.  One  moment  Elizabeth 
would  appear  to  him  cleverer  than  the  cleverest 
man,  the  next  he  saw  in  her  some  feminine  foible 
that  made  her  seem  like  a  precocious  child. 

Yet  all  the  time  Clavering  maintained,  in  his 
quietly  overbearing  way,  that  the  whole  affair  of 
the  marriage  was  fixed ;  but  he  was  not  so  certain 
as  he  professed.  He  would  talk  of  their  plans  : 
they  would  be  married  and  go  to  London,  and 
Elizabeth  might  have  any  sort  of  an  establish- 
ment she  liked.  She  was  already  well  known  and 
well  connected  there,  and  he  candidly  admitted  to 
himself  that  it  would  probably  be  a  season  or  two 
[316] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

before  London  society  would  find  out  exactly  what 
sort  of  a  person  he  was.  He  warned  Elizabeth 
not  to  expect  any  attention  from  the  American 
ambassador,  and  was,  in  short,  perfectly  frank 
with  her. 

He  saw  that  the  idea  of  a  life  of  splendor  in 
London  had  its  attraction  for  Elizabeth.  If  she 
should  marry,  she  would  not  dare  to  remain  in 
Washington,  and  she  had  no  ties  elsewhere  in  her 
own  country.  Clavering's  manners,  in  spite  of 
his  origin  and  career,  were  admirable,  and  she 
would  have  no  occasion  to  blush  for  him  in 
society  —  a  point  on  which  well-bred  women  are 
sensitive.  She  knew,  in  externals,  he  would  com- 
pare favorably  with  any  of  the  self-made  Ameri- 
cans who  buy  their  way  into  English  society. 
For  herself,  her  birth  and  breeding  lifted  her  far 
above  the  average  titled  American  woman,  whose 
papa  or  mamma  has  bought  her  a  title  as  they 
bought  her  a  French  doll  in  her  childhood.  And 
London  was  so  large,  and  so  little  was  really  un- 
derstood there  of  American  life  and  manners,  that 
Elizabeth  felt  they  would  be  comparatively  safe  in 
London  —  if  —  if  — 

She  had  taken  to  reading  the  newspapers  atten- 
tively, and  had  followed  the  investigation  closely. 
She  made  herself  some  sort  of  a  vague  promise 
[317] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

that  should  Clavering  be  exonerated  she  would 
marry  him,  but  if  he  should  be  proved  a  scoundrel 
she  would  not.  But  she  was  already  inwardly 
convinced  that  he  was  guilty.  He  told  her,  the 
first  time  he  had  a  chance,  of  Baskerville's  inter- 
view with  him — told  it  with  such  humor,  such 
raciness,  such  enjoyment  of  Baskerville's  un- 
comfortable predicament,  that  Elizabeth,  though 
little  given  to  merriment,  was  obliged  to  laugh. 

"Of  course,"  he  said,  "they  will  be  married 
shortly.  Baskerville  has  a  fine  position  here  — 
not  showy,  you  know,  but  the  right  sort.  He  has 
a  comfortable  fortune,  too.  Gad  !  at  his  age  I 
would  have  thought  myself  as  rich  as  Rockefeller 
if  I  had  had  as  much.  Now  it  wouldn't  keep  me 
in  automobiles.  I  shall  provide  for  Anne  hand- 
somely, and  besides  she  will  get  everything  I  give 
her  mother,  which  will  be  in  itself  a  handsome 
fortune.  Oh,  I'm  not  mean  about  giving  money 
to  my  family.  Just  as  soon  as  Elise  and  Lydia 
get  the  cash  I  intend  to  give  them,  when  I  get  the 
divorce,  they  will  both  be  sure  to  marry  some 
foreign  sprig.  They  have  a  whole  forest  of  them 
here  and  at  those  foreign  watering-places.  I  shall 
give  Reginald  quite  as  much  as  he  will  know  how 
to  use,  and  that  will  still  leave  me  enough  to  make 
you  one  of  the  richest  women  in  the  world." 
[318] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Then  he  redoubled  his  urging  that  Elizabeth 
should  come  to  the  grand  musical ;  but  she  re- 
fused his  proposition  with  such  violence  that  he 
thought  it  prudent  to  say  no  more  about  it. 
General  Brandon,  however,  had  accepted  with 
pleasure,  and  quite  looked  forward  to  the  event. 
But  the  very  day  before,  he  came  home  from  his 
office  with  a  bad  attack  of  rheumatism,  and  was 
forced  to  take  to  his  bed. 

In  the  afternoon  of  the  next  day,  while  Elizabeth 
was  sitting  by  her  father's  bedside  reading  to  him, 
and  occasionally  giving  furtive  glances  at  the 
great  masses  of  palms  and  magnificent  flowering 
plants  being  carried  into  Clavering's  house,  a 
card  was  brought  up  to  her.  It  was  inscribed, 
"Mr.  Angus  McBean."  So  the  solicitor  had  car- 
ried out  his  threat  at  last.  Elizabeth's  heart  gave 
a  great  jump,  and  then  seemed  as  if  dead  within 
her.  But  she  maintained  some  outward  compos- 
ure, and  said  she  would  see  the  gentleman  in  a 
few  moments  ;  and  telling  General  Brandon  that 
it  was  an  acquaintance  of  other  days,  she  left  the 
room.  She  went  to  her  own  room  to  recover  her- 
self a  little  before  descending  to  meet  the  man 
through  whom  Hugh  Pelham  had  persecuted  her 
ever  since  her  husband's  death. 

When  she  entered  the  drawing-room,  the 
[319] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Scotchman  rose  and  greeted  her  politely.  Eliza- 
beth answered  his  greeting  coldly,  and  McBean, 
who  had  seen  several  Scotch  duchesses  at  a  dis- 
tance, thought  he  had  never  beheld  anything  quite 
so  haughty  as  this  American  woman.  She  re- 
mained standing,  and  Mr.  McBean,  perceiving  she 
was  not  likely  to  ask  him  to  sit,  coolly  took  a 
chair ;  and  Elizabeth,  perforce,  sat  too. 

"  I  have  come  in  the  interests  of  my  client, 
Major  Pelham,  to  endeavor  to  reach  a  basis  of 
settlement  with  you,  madam,  concerning  the  mat- 
ter we  have  been  corresponding  about,"  blandly 
remarked  Mr.  McBean. 

"  So  I  supposed,"  said  Elizabeth,  icily. 

Mr.  McBean  continued,  still  blandly  :  "  I  may 
recall  to  you  that  you  have  persistently  refused  to 
answer  my  letters  or  to  refer  me  to  a  lawyer,  and 
as  the  affair  involves  jewels  of  considerable  value, 
as  well  as  large  sums  of  money,  I  thought  myself 
justified  in  coming  to  America  to  seek  a  settlement 
of  the  matter.  May  I  inquire  if  you  will  now 
give  me  the  name  of  your  lawyer  ?  For  it  would 
be  far  more  to  your  interests  —  I  may  say  it  is 
necessary  to  your  interests  —  that  this  matter  be 
settled  promptly." 

These  words  were  of  vague  but  dreadful  import 
to  Elizabeth.  She  remained  silent.  She  knew 
[320] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

nothing  of  law  or  lawyers,  and  the  mere  thought 
of  consulting  a  lawyer  seemed  to  her  to  be  giving 
away  her  case.  There  was  one,  —  yes,  Richard 
Baskerville,  —  the  only  lawyer  she  knew  in  Wash- 
ington, if  she  might  still  be  said  to  know  him. 
She  recalled  the  few  times  she  had  seen  him  since 
her  return  to  Washington.  But  she  had  known 
him  well  in  the  old  days.  He  seemed  to  have  re- 
tained his  former  kindness  to  her  ;  she  might  con- 
sult him.  All  this  passed  rapidly  through  her 
mind.  What  she  said  was  in  a  calm  voice  :  "  I 
think  I  need  not  consult  any  lawyer  on  the  point 
of  retaining  my  husband's  gift.  The  pendant  to 
the  necklace  was  my  husband's  wedding  present 
to  me." 

Mr.  McBean  sighed  patiently.  He  had  had 
many  dealings  with  lady  clients,  and  all  of  them 
were  like  this,  quite  haughty  and  impossible,  until 
they  were  frightened  ;  then  they  would  do  any- 
thing that  was  asked  of  them.  The  only  thing 
left,  then,  was  to  frighten  Mrs.  Darrell,  and  to 
give  her  to  understand  that  the  rights  of  property 
were  the  most  sacred  rights  on  earth — from  the 
Scotch  point  of  view. 

"  I  think,  madam,  if  you  will  kindly  consent  to 
see  your  solicitor,  or  —  I  believe  you  use  the  generic 
term  in  the  States  —  your  lawyer,  and  will  after- 
[821] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

ward  have  him  kindly  accord  me  an  interview, 
you  will  change  your  mind  upon  this  matter. 
The  necklace,  without  counting  the  additions 
made  to  it  by  your  husband,  or  the  pendant,  which 
I  understand  is  of  no  great  value,  all  of  which  will 
be  restored  to  you,  is  worth  at  least  fifteen  hun- 
dred pounds.  Such  a  piece  of  property  is  not  to 
be  disposed  of  lightly." 

So,  then,  being  driven  into  a  corner,  helpless  and 
alone,  Elizabeth  flatteringly  consented  to  consult 
a  lawyer.  Mr.  McBean  left  as  his  address  a  sec- 
ond-class hotel,  and  bowed  himself  out,  promising 
to  repeat  his  call  as  soon  as  he  was  permitted. 

Had  the  Scotch  solicitor  known  it,  he  had  done 
more  toward  driving  Elizabeth  into  marrying 
Clavering  than  any  of  Clavering's  offers,  vows, 
urgings,  and  inducements.  As  she  stood,  pale 
and  frightened,  with  a  wildly  beating  heart,  her 
eyes  fell  involuntarily  on  the  superb  house  op- 
posite her. 

At  that  moment  Clavering  dashed  up  in  a  mag- 
nificent automobile,  and  got  out.  Elizabeth  noticed 
that  he  did  not  walk  with  his  usual  graceful  and 
springy  step,  and  that  he  leaned  against  one  of 
the  stone  pillars  of  the  doorway,  before  the  ever 
ready,  gorgeously  caparisoned  flunky  opened  the 
entrance  door.  In  truth,  James  Clavering  had  in 
[322] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

his  breast  pocket  a  type-written  document,  which 
acted  like  a  drag  upon  his  footsteps  and  a  weight 
upon  his  shoulders.  It  was  a  stolen  copy  of  the 
report  of  the  committee  of  investigation,  for  he 
always  had  those  in  his  pay  who  served  him  on 
like  occasions. 

The  next  moment,  Elise  and  Lydia  drove  up  in 
a  gem  of  a  victoria.  They  were  enveloped  in  the 
costliest  furs,  and  so  were  the  immaculate  coach- 
man and  footman.  The  pair  of  perfectly  matched 
bay  cobs  was  worth  a  fortune.  The  harness  was 
gold-mounted,  with  the  Clavering  initials  upon  it. 
As  the  two  girls  got  out  of  the  victoria  Elizabeth 
caught  the  gleam  of  a  long  chain  dotted  with  dia- 
monds around  Elise's  neck.  Both  of  them  seemed 
to  radiate  wealth;  and  there  stood  she,  forlorn 
and  despairing  for  the  lack  of  a  few  hundred 
pounds ! 

Nor  was  this  all.  Even  if  the  value  of  the 
necklace  could  be  raised  by  her  father's  sacrific- 
ing everything  he  had,  —  his  interest  in  his  mort- 
gaged house,  —  what  might  not  be  done  to  her 
because  she  could  not  produce  the  necklace  itself? 
Clavering  had  told  her  that  with  money  enough  it 
could  easily  be  traced  and  recovered;  but  that 
would  mean  more  money  still,  and  she  might  as 
well  ask  for  a  star  as  for  any  more  than  the  small 
[323] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

sum  her  father  could  raise.  And  when  she  thought 
that  by  saying  one  word  she  could  step  from  this 
unstable,  bitter,  and  humiliating  position  into  the 
very  acme  of  luxury  and  all  the  ease  of  mind 
which  money  could  give,  it  seemed  to  her  almost 
a  paradise.  It  was  well  for  her  that  Clavering 
was  not  on  the  spot  at  that  moment. 

She  went  back  to  her  father's  bedside  and  to 
reading  the  book  she  had  laid  down.  She  uttered 
the  words,  but  her  mind  was  far  off.  As  she  dwelt 
upon  Mr.  McBean's  phrases  and  thinly  disguised 
threats,  she  grew  more  and  more  panic-stricken. 
At  last  Serena  brought  up  General  Brandon's 
dinner,  and  Elizabeth  went  down  to  her  own 
solitary  meal  in  the  dingy  dining  room.  Action 
was  forced  upon  her ;  she  must  see  a  lawyer,  and 
Richard  Baskerville  was  her  only  choice.  She 
must  try  to  see  him  that  very  night.  As  she 
knew  he  would  not  be  at  the  Claverings',  she 
thought  her  chance  of  finding  him  at  home  was 
excellent. 

When  dinner  was  over  Elizabeth  gave  Serena 
a  note  to  take  to  Richard  Baskerville,  asking  him 
to  call  that  evening  to  see  her  upon  a  matter  of 
pressing  importance.  She  put  her  request  upon 
the  ground  of  old  acquaintance,  coupled  with 
present  necessity.  Serena  returned  within  a 
[324] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

half-hour,  with  a  note  from  Baskerville  saying 
he  would  be  pleased  to  call  to  see  Mrs.  Darrell 
that  evening  at  half-past  nine  o'clock. 

General  Brandon  having  been  made  comfortable 
for  the  night,  Elizabeth  descended  to  the  drawing- 
room.  The  gas  was  lighted,  but  turned  low. 
Elizabeth  went  to  the  window,  whence  she  could 
see  the  Clavering  house  blazing  with  light  and 
an  army  of  liveried  servants  moving  to  and  fro. 
A  fraction  of  the  cost  of  that  one  entertainment 
would  have  made  her  a  free  woman. 

Shortly  after  half-past  nine  o'clock  Baskerville 
arrived.  Like  Elizabeth,  he  gazed  with  interest 
at  the  Clavering  house.  It  was  undoubtedly 
the  last  great  entertainment  there  at  which 
Anne  would  preside,  and  Baskerville  had  a 
conviction  that  it  was  the  last  entertainment 
the  Claverings  would  ever  give  in  Washington. 
He  had  private  information  that  the  committee  of 
investigation  had  agreed  upon  its  report,  and  he 
believed  it  would  deal  severely  with  Clavering. 

He  had  been  surprised  to  receive  Elizabeth's 
note,  but  he  recognized  at  once  that  she  was  in 
great  trouble,  and  he  had  come  willingly,  as  a 
gentleman  should.  When  he  saw  Elizabeth,  he 
realized  how  great  was  her  trouble.  Then,  sitting 
in  the  dimly  lighted  drawing-room,  Elizabeth, 
[325] 


MRS.  DARRELL, 

with  many  pauses  and  palpitations  and  hesita- 
tions, began  her  story.  Baskerville  gently  as- 
sisted her,  and  the  telling  of  the  first  part 
was  not  so  hard.  When  it  came  to  the  further 
history  of  it  Elizabeth  faltered,  and  asked  anx- 
iously, "But  wasn't  the  necklace  mine  entirely, 
after  my  husband  gave  it  to  me  ?  " 

Baskerville  shook  his  head.  "  I'm  afraid  not, 
Mrs.  Darrell,  and  I  am  afraid  that  Major  Darrell 
made  a  mistake  —  a  perfectly  natural  and  ex- 
cusable mistake  —  in  thinking  it  was  his  to  give 
you  in  perpetuity.  Of  course  I  am  not  so  well 
informed  on  these  points  as  an  English  lawyer 
would  be,  but  from  what  you  tell  me  of  the  other 
jewels,  and  the  course  of  the  solicitor  concerning 
them,  I  cannot  but  think  that  he  knows  what  he 
is  doing,  and  that  you  will  have  to  give  up  the 
necklace,  retaining  of  course  your  pendant,  and 
perhaps  the  stones  your  husband  bought." 

Elizabeth  looked  at  him  with  wild,  scared  eyes; 
and  then,  bursting  into  tears,  told  him  the  whole 
story  of  pawning  the  necklace,  of  finding  it  gone, 
and  her  unwillingness  to  own  what  she  had  done. 
Baskerville  was  startled,  but  allowed  her  to  weep 
on,  without  trying  to  check  her.  He  saw  that  she 
was  in  a  state  of  trembling  excitement,  excessive 
even  under  the  circumstances,  and  she  must  have 
[326] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

her  tears  out.     She  had,  so  far,  avoided  mention- 
ing Pelham's  name. 

"But  what  of  the  heirs  of  Major  Darrell? 
Surely,  when  they  know  how  you  were  strait- 
ened in  London  after  your  husband's  death  and 
the  good  faith  in  which  you  pledged  the  neck- 
lace, they  would  not  wish  to  distress  you  un- 
necessarily about  it." 

Then  Elizabeth  was  forced  to  speak  of  Pelham. 
"  Major  Darrell's  heir  is  his  cousin,  Major  Pelham, 
the  man  —  next  my  husband  and  my  father  — 
whom  I  thought  my  truest  friend.  He  is  in 
West  Africa  now,  or  was  when  my  husband 
died,  and  I  have  not  heard  of  his  return  to 
England  since.  But  he  has  countenanced  all 
this,  and  seems  to  delight  in  persecuting  me 
through  this  man  McBean.  And  it  is  quite 
useless,  too,  as  I  have  no  means  of  paying  the 
money.  I  have  only  a  small  income,  about  a 
hundred  pounds  a  year.  But  if  my  father 
learns  of  my  trouble,  as  he  eventualty  must 
if  this  persecution  is  kept  up,  he  will  certainly 
sell  this  house  —  his  only  piece  of  property,  and 
mortgaged  at  that.  Oh,  I  didn't  think  a  man 
could  be  so  cruel  as  Hugh  Pelham  has  been !  " 

"  Does  McBean  claim  to  be  acting  under  Major 
Pelham's  instructions  ?  " 

[327] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  Yes.  In  everything  he  writes  me  or  says  to 
me  he  uses  Hugh  Pelham's  name." 

"There  is  but  one  thing  to  do,  Mrs.  Darrell. 
I  shall  see  McBean  to-morrow  and  endeavor  to 
see  what  I  can  do  with  him.  If  I  fail  with  him, 
I  shall  appeal  to  Major  Pelham." 

"  Oh,  no,  not  that  — not  that !  " 

She  spoke  with  so  much  of  feeling,  of  anger, 
of  mortification  in  her  voice,  that  Baskerville 
could  not  but  suspect  that  there  was  something 
more  concerning  Pelham  which  Elizabeth  had  not 
chosen  to  tell  him  ;  but  his  duty  to  her  as  a  friend 
and  a  lawyer  remained  the  same.  "  Pardon  me," 
he  said  kindly,  "  but  I  think  it  almost  necessary 
to  inform  Major  Pelham  of  the  state  of  the  case. 
I  shall  not,  however,  do  it  unless  you  consent. 
But  I  think  you  will  consent." 

Elizabeth  grew  more  composed,  and  they  talked 
some  time  longer  —  talked  until  the  rolling  of 
carriages  began  under  the  porte-cochere  of  the 
Clavering  house,  and  women  wrapped  in  gorgeous 
ball  cloaks  and  trailing  behind  them  rich  brocades 
and  velvets  and  sparkling  chiffons  began  to  pour 
through  the  great  entrance  doors  into  the  regions 
of  light  and  splendor  beyond.  The  rhythmic 
swell  of  music  began  to  be  heard ;  the  great 
festivity  had  begun. 

[328] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

Both  Elizabeth  and  Baskerville,  sitting  in  the 
quiet  room  only  a  stone's  throw  away,  were 
thinking  about  what  was  going  on  in  the  great 
mansion  across  the  street.  Elizabeth  was  asking 
herself  if,  after  all,  there  were  any  alternative  left 
her  but  to  agree  to  marry  Clavering.  One  word, 
and  all  her  troubles  and  perplexities  about  money, 
which  had  spoiled  her  life  from  the  time  of  her 
girlhood,  would  disappear.  And  if  she  did  not 
marry  Clavering  —  here  her  dread  and  apprehen- 
sion became  so  strong  that  she  was  sickened  at 
the  contemplation. 

In  spite  of  her  preoccupation  with  her  own 
troubles  she  could  not  but  regard  Baskerville  with 
interest,  knowing  of  his  relations  with  Anne 
Clavering.  Here  was  another  man,  like  Pelham, 
who  seemed  the  very  mirror  of  manly  love  and 
courage  ;  but  perhaps  he  would  be  no  better  than 
Pelham  in  the  long  run.  He  might  marry  Anne 
under  an  impulse  of  generous  feeling  and  live  to 
repent  it.  Elizabeth  was  becoming  a  sceptic  on 
the  subject  of  man's  love. 

Baskerville  had  no  suspicion  that  Elizabeth 
Darrell  knew  anything  of  his  relations  with  Anne 
Clavering,  nor  did  he  connect  Clavering  in  any 
way  with  Elizabeth.  He  was  thinking  of  Anne 
while  talking  to  Elizabeth,  remembering  how  she 
[329] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

had  disliked  and  dreaded  this  great  function. 
She  was  to  do  the  honors  of  the  occasion,  Mrs. 
Clavering  being  still  ailing.  The  town  had  been 
ringing  with  the  magnificence  of  the  coming  fes- 
tivity, but  Anne  had  been  so  averse  to  it  that  Bas- 
kerville  had  said  little  about  it  to  her.  It  was 
out  of  the  question  that  he  should  go,  and  so  no 
card  had  been  sent  him  ;  and  he  agreed  fully 
with  Anne  that  the  affair  was  most  unfortunately 
conspicuous  at  the  present  time. 

A  silence  had  fallen  between  Baskerville  and 
Elizabeth,  while  listening  to  the  commotion  out- 
side. A  sudden  wild  impulse  came  to  Elizabeth 
to  tell  Baskerville,  of  all  men,  her  struggles  about 
consenting  to  marry  Clavering,  without  mention- 
ing any  name.  Baskerville  had  been  kind  and 
helpful  to  her ;  he  had  come  to  her  immediately 
at  her  request ;  and  before  she  knew  it  she  was 
saying  to  him,  in  a  nervous  voice  :  "  I  could  be 
free  from  all  these  anxieties  about  money,  my 
father  could  end  his  days  in  ease  —  all,  all  if  I 
would  but  marry  a  divorced  man  —  a  man  to  be 
divorced,  that  is.  And  after  all,  he  never  was 
actually  married,  it  was  a  mistake." 

Baskerville  had  been  looking  abstractedly  out 
of  the  window  at  the  carriages  flashing  past,  but 
at  this  he  turned  quickly  to  Elizabeth.  "You 
[330] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

mean  Senator  Clavering?"  Baskerville  was  a 
remarkably  self-contained  man,  but  in  his  burst 
of  surprise  the  name  fell  from  his  lips  before  he 
knew  it. 

Elizabeth  sat  dumb.  She  had  yielded  to  a  mad 
impulse,  and  would  have  given  a  year  of  her  life 
to  have  unsaid  those  words.  Baskerville  hesi- 
tated for  a  minute  or  two,  and  then  rose.  Eliza- 
beth's silence,  the  painful  flushing  of  her  face, 
her  whole  attitude  of  conscious  guilt,  proclaimed 
the  truth  of  Baskerville's  surmise.  He  looked 
at  her  in  pity  and  commiseration.  She  had  just 
told  him  enough  to  make  him  understand  how 
great  the  temptation  was  to  her  ;  and  yet  so  far 
she  had  not  yielded.  But  that  she  would  yield 
he  had  not  the  least  douTbt.  And  what  untold 
miseries  would  not  she,  or  any  woman  like  her, 
bring  upon  herself  by  marrying  Clavering  ! 

It  was  a  question  which  neither  one  of  them 
could  discuss,  and  Baskerville's  only  words  were  : 
"  I  have  no  right  to  offer  you  my  advice,  except 
on  the  point  upon  which  you  have  consulted  me, 
but  I  beg  of  you  to  consider  well  what  you  are 
thinking  of.  You  are  hovering  over  dreadful 
possibilities  for  yourself.  Good  night." 

He  was  going,  but  Elizabeth  ran  and  grasped 
his  arm.  "  You  won't  speak  of  this  to  Miss 
[331] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

Clavering  !     You  must  not  do  it !     You  have  no 
right  !  " 

Baskerville  smiled  rather  bitterly.  Whether 
Elizabeth  were  afraid  or  ashamed  he  did  not 
know  —  probably  both. 

"  Certainly  I  shall  not,"  he  said,  and  to  Eliza- 
beth's ears  his  tone  expressed  the  most  entire  con- 
tempt. 

"And  I  haven't  promised  him  —  I  haven't 
agreed  yet,"  she  added,  tears  coming  into  her 
eyes  ;  and  then  Baskerville  was  gone. 

Elizabeth  sat,  stunned  by  her  own  folly,  and 
burning  with  shame  at  the  scorn  she  fancied 
Baskerville  had  felt  for  her.  He  had  been  kind 
to  her  and  had  agreed  to  do  all  that  was  possible 
with  McBean,  but  by  her  own  act  she  had  lost  his 
good  will  and  respect.  Well,  it  was  part  of  the 
web  of  destiny.  She  was  being  driven  to  marry 
Clavering  by  every  circumstance  of  her  life  — 
even  this  last.  Pelham's  unkindness  was  the  be- 
ginning of  it ;  McBean's  persecution  helped  it  on  ; 
General  Brandon's  goodness  and  generosity,  Bas- 
kerville's  contempt  for  her  —  all  urged  her  on  ;  she 
supposed  Baskerville  would  probably  have  nothing 
more  to  do  with  her  affairs  and  would  leave  her 
to  face  McBean  alone,  and  that  would  be  the  end 
of  her  resistance  to  Clavering. 
[332] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

She  went  up  to  her  own  room  and,  with  a  cloak 
huddled  about  her,  sat  by  the  window  in  the  dark, 
looking  out  upon  the  splendid  scene  of  a  great  ball 
in  a  capital  city.  Elizabeth  in  the  cold  and  dark- 
ness watched  it  all  —  watched  until  the  ambassa- 
dors' carriages  were  called,  followed  rapidly  by 
the  other  equipages  which  were  parked  in  the  sur- 
rounding streets  for  blocks.  At  last,  after  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  the  trampling  of  horses' 
hoofs,  the  closing  of  carriage  doors,  and  the  com- 
motion of  footmen  and  coachmen  ceased  —  the 
great  affair  was  over.  Quickly  as  in  the  trans- 
formation scene  at  a  theatre,  the  splendid  house 
grew  dark  —  all  except  the  windows  of  Clavering's 
library.  They  remained  brilliantly  lighted  long 
after  all  else  in  the  street  was  dark  and  quiet. 

Elizabeth,  for  some  reason  inexplicable  to  herself, 
remained  still  at  her  window,  looking  at  the  blaze 
of  light  from  Clavering's  library  windows.  What 
was  keeping  him  up  so  late  ?  Was  it  good  news  or 
bad  ?  Had  the  report  of  the  committee  been  made  ? 

Within  the  library  sat  Clavering  in  his  accus- 
tomed chair.  In  his  hand  he  held  a  type-written 
document  of  many  pages,  which  had  cost  him 
many  thousands  of  dollars  to  have  purloined  and 
copied  from  another  one  which  was  locked  up  in 
the  safe  of  the  secretary  of  the  Senate.  Every 
[333] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

page  of  this  document  proclaimed  in  some  form  or 
other  his  guilt,  and  at  the  bottom  was  written  in 
the  handwriting  of  a  man  he  knew  well,  and  who 
had  stolen  and  copied  the  report  for  him  :  — 

"  Resolution  of  expulsion  will  be  introduced  im- 
mediately after  reading  of  report,  and  will  pass  by 
three-fourths  majority." 

And  the  hired  thief  had  not  played  fair  with 
him.  He  had  discovered  that  at  least  three  news- 
papers had  bought  the  stolen  report,  and  at  that 
very  moment  he  knew  the  great  presses  in  the 
newspaper  offices  were  clanging  with  the  story  of 
his  disgrace  to  be  printed  on  the  morrow. 

Then  there  was  a  bunch  of  telegrams  from  his 
state  capital.  If  the  Senate  did  not  vote  to  expel, 
the  legislature  would  request  him  to  resign  ;  so 
there  was  no  vindication  there.  To  this,  then,  had 
his  public  career  come  1  Clavering  was  not  honest 
himself,  nor  did  he  believe  in  honesty  in  others  ; 
but  he  believed  it  possible  that  he  might  have 
been  more  secret  in  his  evil-doing.  He  had 
thought  that  with  money,  brains,  and  courage  he 
could  brazen  anything  out.  But  behold !  he 
could  not.  He  was  fairly  caught  and  exposed. 
Those  stray  words  of  Baskerville's,  uttered  some 
[334] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

months  before,  recurred  to  him,  "  There  is  no 
real  substitute  for  honesty." 

He  had  heard  the  news  on  his  way  home  that 
afternoon,  from  an  out-of-town  expedition.  It  had 
unnerved  him  for  a  little  while  ;  it  was  that  which 
made  him  get  out  of  the  automobile  so  heavily 
when  Elizabeth,  unseen,  was  watching  him.  He 
had  gone  through  the  evening,  however,  bravely 
and  even  cynically.  Many  senators  had  been 
asked  to  the  great  function,  but  scarcely  half  a 
dozen  had  appeared  ;  and  all  of  them  were  incon- 
siderable men,  dragged  there  by  their  womenkind. 
In  the  course  of  some  hours  of  reflection  —  for 
Clavering  could  think  in  a  crowd  —  a  part  of  his 
indomitable  courage  and  resource  had  returned. 
He  had  no  fear  of  the  criminal  prosecution  which 
would  certainly  follow.  William  M.  Tweed  had 
been  caught,  but  Tweed  was  a  mere  vulgar  villain 
and  did  not  know  when  he  was  beaten.  Clavering 
rapidly  made  up  his  mind  that  he  could  afford  to 
restore  eight  or  even  ten  millions  of  dollars  to  the 
rightful  owners,  and  that  would  satisfy  them  ; 
they  wouldn't  be  likely  to  spend  any  part  of  it  in 
trying  to  punish  him. 

As  for  any  part  the  state  and  federal  govern- 
ment might  take  he  was  not  particularly  con- 
cerned. The  party  had  done  enough  to  clear  its 
[335] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

skirts  by  expelling  him  from  the  Senate,  and  if  he 
satisfied  all  the  claims  against  him,  nobody  would 
have  any  object  in  entering  upon  a  long,  expen- 
sive, and  doubtful  trial.  But  after  paying  out 
even  ten  millions  of  dollars  he  would  have  twice 
as  much  left,  which  nobody  and  no  government 
could  get,  though  it  was  as  dishonestly  made  as 
the  rest.  With  that  much  money  and  Elizabeth 
Darrell  —  for  Elizabeth  entered  into  all  his  calcu- 
lations —  life  would  still  be  worth  living. 

When  the  mob  of  gayly  dressed  people  were 
gone,  when  the  laughter  and  the  dancing  and 
the  music  and  the  champagne  and  the  feasting 
were  over,  and  Clavering  sat  in  his  library  alone 
under  the  brilliant  chandelier,  he  grew  positively 
cheerful.  He  was  not  really  fond  of  public  life, 
and  although  he  would  have  liked  to  get  out  of 
it  more  gracefully,  he  was  not  really  sorry  to  go. 
He  had  found  himself  bound  in  a  thousand  con- 
ventions since  he  had  been  in  Washington.  He 
had  been  hampered  by  his  family  :  by  his  wife 
because  she  was  old  and  stupid  and  ignorant,  by 
Elise  and  Lydia  because  they  were  so  bad,  by 
Anne  and  Reginald  because  they  were  so  honest. 
It  would  be  rather  good  to  be  free  once  more  — 
free  in  the  great,  wide,  untamed  West,  free  in 
the  vast,  populous,  surging  cities  of  Europe.  He 
[336] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

would  have  Elizabeth  with  him  ;  he  did  not  much 
care  for  any  one  else's  society.  She  had  never 
heard  him  admit  his  guilt,  and  he  could  easily 
persuade  her  that  he  was  the  victim  of  untoward 
circumstances. 

While  he  was  thinking  these  things,  he  heard  a 
commotion  overhead.  Presently  the  whole  house 
was  roused,  and  servants  were  running  back 
and  forth.  Elizabeth  Darrell,  still  watching 
at  her  window,  saw  the  sudden  and  alarming 
awakening  of  the  silent  house.  Mrs.  Clavering 
had  been  taken  violently  ill.  Before  sunrise  the 
poor  lady  was  no  longer  in  any  one's  way.  A 
few  hours  of  stupor,  a  little  awakening  at  the 
last,  a  clinging  to  Anne  and  Reginald  and  telling 
them  to  be  good,  and  Mrs.  Clavering's  gentle 
spirit  was  free  and  in  peace. 

When  the  undertaker  was  hanging  the  stream- 
ers of  black  upon  the  door-bell,  the  morning 
newspaper  was  laid  on  the  steps.  On  the  first 
page,  with  great  head-lines,  was  the  announce- 
ment that  Senator  Clavering  had  been  found 
guilty  of  the  charges  against  him  and  that  expul- 
sion from  the  Senate  was  certain  to  follow.  The 
newspaper  omitted  to  state  how  the  information 
was  obtained. 

«  [  337  ] 


Chapter  Seventeen 

THE  morning  of  Ash  Wednesday  dawned  cold 
and  damp  and  cheerless.  Baskerville  had  heard 
a  rumor  at  the  club  the  night  before  that  there 
had  been  a  leak  between  the  committee-room,  the 
office  of  the  secretary  of  the  Senate,  and  the  room 
of  the  investigating  committee  ;  that  the  big  iron 
safe  had  been  entered  and  a  stolen  copy  of  the 
report  of  the  committee  had  been  made  and 
would  be  published  in  the  morning.  So  he  had 
the  morning  newspaper  brought  to  him.  On  the 
first  page,  with  a  huge  display  head,  together 
with  the  recommendation  of  expulsion  against 
Senator  Clavering,  the  report  was  printed  in  full. 

Baskerville  immediately  wrote  a  note  to  Anne 
Clavering,  asking  that  their  engagement  might 
be  announced  and  also  suggesting  an  immediate 
marriage.  Within  an  hour  came  back  an  answer 
from  Anne.  In  a  few  agitated  lines  she  told  him 
of  her  mother's  death.  She  did  not  ask  Basker- 
ville to  come  to  her  ;  but  he,  seeing  that  it  was 
no  time  for  small  conventions,  replied  at  once, 
[338] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

saying  that  he  would  be  at  her  house  at  twelve 
o'clock,  and  begged  that  she  would  see  him. 

Elizabeth  Barrel!  was  the  first  person  outside 
of  Clavering's  family  who  knew  that  he  was  a 
free  man.  There  had  been  no  time  to  get  a 
doctor  for  Mrs.  Clavering,  although  several  had 
been  called.  When  they  arrived,  all  was  over. 
Elizabeth  had  seen  the  sudden  shutting  of  the 
windows  ;  she  knew,  almost  to  a  moment,  when 
Mrs.  Clavering  died. 

At  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning  Serena,  with 
the  morbid  anxiety  to  communicate  tragic  news 
which  is  the  characteristic  of  the  African,  came 
up  to  Elizabeth's  room  full  of  what  she  had 
gleaned  from  the  neighboring  servants.  Eliza- 
betn  listened  and  felt  a  sense  of  guilt  enveloping 
her.  Then,  when  General  Brandon  was  dressed, 
he  came  up  to  her  door  to  discuss  the  startling 
news,  and  his  was  the  first  card  left  for  the 
Clavering  family.  On  it  the  good  soul  had 
written  :  — 

"  With  heartfelt  sympathy  in  the  overwhelming 
sorrow  which  has  befallen  Senator  Clavering  and 
his  family." 

Elizabeth  remained  indoors  all  that  day.     She 
drew  her  window  curtains  together,  so  that  she 
[339] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

could  not  see  the  house  which  might  have  been 
hers,  where  had  lived  the  dead  woman  of  whom 
she  had  considered  the  spoliation. 

At  twelve  o'clock  Baskerville  came,  and  was 
promptly  admitted  into  the  Clavering  house. 
There  had  been  no  time  to  remove  the  festal 
decorations.  The  Moorish  hall  was  odorous  with 
flowers  ;  the  mantels  and  even  the  hand-rail  of 
the  staircase  were  banked  with  them.  Masses 
of  tall  palms  made  a  mysterious  green  light 
through  the  whole  of  the  great  suite  of  rooms. 
The  ceilings  were  draped  with  greenery,  and 
orchids  and  roses  hung  from  them.  The  huge 
ball-room  was  just  as  the  dancers  had  left  it,  and 
everywhere  were  flowers,  palms,  and  burnt-out 
candles  on  girandoles  and  candelabra.  The  ser- 
vants, in  gorgeous  liveries,  sat  about,  more  asleep 
than  awake  ;  and  over  all  was  that  solemn  silence 
which  accompanies  the  presence  of  that  first  and 
greatest  of  democrats,  Death. 

Baskerville  was  shown  into  a  little  morning- 
room  on  the  second  floor,  which  had  belonged  to 
the  poor  dead  woman.  It  was  very  simply  fur- 
nished and  in  many  ways  suggested  Mrs.  Claver- 
ing. Baskerville,  remembering  her  untoward 
fate  in  being  thrust  into  a  position  for  which 
she  was  unfitted,  and  her  genuine  goodness  and 
[340] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

gentleness,  felt  a  real  regret  at  her  death.  Being 
a  generous  man,  he  had  taken  pleasure  in  the 
intention  of  being  kind  to  Mrs.  Clavering  ;  he 
knew  that  it  would  add  extremely  to  Anne's  hap- 
piness. But,  like  much  other  designed  good,  it 
was  too  late.  He  remembered  with  satisfaction 
the  little  courtesies  he  had  been  able  to  show 
Mrs.  Clavering  and  Anne's  gratitude  for  them  ; 
and  then,  before  he  knew  it,  Anne,  in  her  black 
gown,  pale  and  heavy-eyed,  was  sobbing  in  his 
arms. 

She  soon  became  composed,  and  told  him  calmly 
of  the  last  days.  She  dwelt  with  a  kind  of  solemn 
joy  upon  her  last  conversation  with  her  mother 
about  Baskerville,  and  the  message  she  had  sent 
him.  "My  mother  had  not  been  any  too  well 
treated  in  this  life,"  added  Anne,  the  smouldering 
resentment  in  her  heart  showing  in  her  eyes,  "  and 
you  are  almost  the  only  man  of  your  class  who 
ever  seemed  to  recognize  her  beautiful  qualities  — 
for  my  mother  had  beautiful  qualities." 

"I  know  it,"  replied  Baskerville,  with  perfect 
sincerity,  "and  I  tried  to  show  my  appreciation 
of  them." 

It  was  plain  to  Baskerville,  after  spending  some 
time  with  Anne,  that  she  knew  nothing  of  the 
news  concerning  her  father  with  which  all  Wash- 
[341] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

ington  was  ringing.  Baskerville  felt  that  it  would 
never  do  for  her  to  hear  it  by  idle  gossip  or  by 
chance.  So,  after  a  while,  he  told  her  —  told  her 
with  all  the  gentleness,  all  the  tenderness,  at  his 
command,  softening  it  so  far  as  he  could. 

Anne  listened,  tearless  and  dry-eyed.  She  fol- 
lowed him  fairly  well,  and  asked  at  last,  "  Do  you 
mean  that  —  that  my  father  will  be  expelled  from 
the  Senate,  and  then  —  there  will  be  no  more 
trouble  ?  " 

"Dearest,  I  wish  I  could  say  so.  But  there 
will  be  a  great  deal  more  of  trouble,  I  am  afraid  — 
enough  to  make  it  necessary  that  you  and  I  should 
be  married  as  soon  as  possible." 

"  And  you  would  marry  the  daughter  of  a  man 
so  disgraced,  who  may  end  his  days  in  a  prison  ?  " 

"Yes  —  since  it  is  you." 

He  then  inquired  her  plans  for  the  present. 
Mrs.  Clavering's  body  was  to  be  taken  for  burial 
to  her  old  home  in  Iowa.  Baskerville  asked,  or 
rather  demanded,  that  within  a  month  Anne 
should  be  prepared  to  become  his  wife.  "And 
haven't  you  some  relations  out  in  Iowa  from 
whose  house  we  can  be  married  ? "  he  said. 

"  Yes,"  replied  Anne,  "  I  have  aunts  and  cousins 
there.  I  warn  you  they  are  very  plain  people, 
but  they  are  very  respectable.  I  don't  think 
[342] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

there  is  a  person  in  my  mother's  family  of  whom 
I  have  any  reason  to  be  ashamed,  although  they 
are,  as  I  tell  you,  plain  people." 

"  That  is  of  no  consequence  whatever.  I  shall 
wait  until  after  your  mother's  funeral  before 
writing  your  father  and  having  our  engagement 
announced,  and  within  a  month  I  shall  come  to 
Iowa  to  marry  you." 

And  Anne,  seeing  this  sweet  refuge  open  to  her, 
took  heart  of  grace  and  comfort. 

Clavering  himself,  sitting  in  his  darkened 
library,  was  in  no  way  awed  by  death  having 
invaded  his  house.  He  had  been  brought  face  to 
face  with  it  too  often  to  be  afraid  of  it ;  he  was  a 
genuine,  throughgoing  disbeliever  in  everything 
except  money  and  power,  and  he  regarded  the  end 
of  life  as  being  an  interesting  but  unimportant 
event. 

His  wife's  death  was  most  opportune  for  him  ; 
it  made  it  certain  that  Elizabeth  Darrell  would 
marry  him.  He  had  fully  realized  that  stubborn 
prejudice  on  Elizabeth's  part  against  divorce,  and 
although  he  had  not  seriously  doubted  his  ability 
to  overcome  it,  yet  it  had  been  stubborn.  Now  all 
was  smoothed  away.  He  would  act  with  perfect 
propriety,  under  the  circumstances  ;  he  surmised 
enough  about  the  women  of  Elizabeth's  class  to 
[343] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

understand  that  a  breach  of  decorum  would  shock 
her  far  more  than  a  breach  of  morals.  There 
would  be  no  outward  breach  of  decorum.  He 
would  wait  until  after  the  funeral  before  writing 
her  ;  but  it  would  be  useless,  hypocritical,  and 
even  dangerous  to  postpone  writing  longer. 

With  these  thoughts  in  his  mind  he  sat  through 
the  day,  receiving  and  answering  telegrams, 
scanning  the  newspapers,  and  digesting  his  own 
disgrace  as  exposed  in  print.  Even  that  had 
come  at  a  fortunate  time  for  him  —  if  there  is  a 
fortunate  time  to  be  branded  a  thief,  a  liar,  and  a 
perjurer,  a  suborner  of  perjury,  a  corrupter  of 
courts,  a  purchaser  of  legislatures.  Elizabeth 
would  feel  sorry  for  him  ;  she  wouldn't  under- 
stand the  thing  at  all.  He  would  insist  on  being 
married  in  the  autumn,  and  Elizabeth  would  no 
doubt  be  glad  to  be  married  as  far  away  from 
Washington  as  possible.  Perhaps  she  might  agree 
to  meet  him  in  London  and  be  married  there.  He 
would  go  over  in  the  summer,  take  the  finest  house 
to  be  had  for  money,  and  transport  all  the  superb 
equipment  of  his  Washington  establishment  to 
London.  He  also  remembered  with  satisfaction 
that  he  had  now  nothing  to  fear  on  the  score  of 
divorce  from  that  soft-spoken,  wooden-headed, 
fire-eating  old  impracticable,  General  Brandon, 
[344] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

with  his  fatal  tendency  to  settle  with  the  pistol 
questions  concerning  "  the  ladies  of  his  family." 

In  these  reflections  and  considerations  James 
Clavering  passed  the  first  day  of  his  widower- 
hood.  On  the  third  day  after  Mrs.  Clavering's 
death  the  great  house  was  shut  up  and  silent. 
The  Claveriugs  left  it,  never  to  return  to  it.  It 
stood  vacant,  a  monument  of  man's  vicissitudes. 

The  day  after  Mrs.  Clavering's  burial  took 
place,  in  the  little  Iowa  town  where  her  family 
lived,  a  line  appeared  in  the  society  column  of 
a  leading  Washington  newspaper,  announcing  the 
engagement  of  Anne  Clavering  and  Richard  Bas- 
kerville.  Coming  as  it  did  on  the  heels  of  the 
tragic  events  in  the  Clavering  family  and  Bas- 
kerville's  share  in  a  part  of  these  events,  the 
announcement  was  startling  though  far  from 
unexpected.  Mrs.  Luttrell  took  upon  herself  the 
office  of  personally  acquainting  her  friends  with 
the  engagement  and  declaring  her  entire  satis- 
faction with  it.  Being  by  nature  an  offensive 
partisan,  much  given  to  pernicious  activity  in 
causes  which  engaged  her  heart,  Mrs.  Luttrell 
soon  developed  into  a  champion  of  the  whole 
Clavering  family.  She  discovered  many  admi- 
rable qualities  in  Clavering  himself,  and  changed 
her  tune  completely  concerning  Elise  and  Lydia, 
[345] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

whom  she  now  spoke  of  as  "a  couple  of  giddy 
chits,  quite  harmless,  and  only  a  little  wild." 
These  two  young  women  had  speedily  made  up 
their  minds  to  fly  to  Europe,  and  arranged  to  do 
so  as  soon  as  Anne  was  married,  which  was  to  be 
within  the  month. 

The  catastrophes  of  the  Clavering  family  made 
a  profound  impression  on  Washington.  Their 
meteoric  career  was  a  sort  of  epitome  of  all  the 
possibilities  of  the  sudden  acquisition  of  wealth 
and  power.  Whatever  might  be  said  of  them, 
they  were  at  least  not  cowards  —  not  even  Regi- 
nald Clavering  was  a  coward.  They  were  boldly 
bad,  or  boldly  good.  Anne  Clavering  had  won 
for  herself  a  place  in  the  esteem  of  society  which 
was  of  great  value.  Not  one  disrespectful  or 
unkind  word  was  spoken  of  her  when  the  day  of 
reckoning  for  the  Claverings  came. 

The  Senate  allowed  James  Clavering  two  weeks 
to  recover  from  his  grief  at  his  wife's  death  before 
annihilating  him  as  a  senator.  Clavering  im- 
proved the  time  not  only  by  arranging  for  his 
second  marriage,  but  by  forestalling,  when  he  had 
no  fighting  ground,  the  criminal  indictments  which 
might  be  expected  to  be  found  against  him.  He 
paid  out  secretly  in  satisfaction  money,  and 
reconveyed  in  bonds,  nearly  three  millions  of 
[346] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

dollars.  There  were  several  millions  more  to  be 
fought  over,  but  that  was  a  matter  of  time  ;  and 
he  would  still  have  a  great  fortune  remaining,  if 
every  suit  went  against  him. 

It  would  very  much  have  simplified  his  prop- 
erty arrangements  had  Elizabeth  Darrell  con- 
sented to  marry  him  within  a  few  weeks  of  his 
widowerhood.  But  this  Clavering  knew  was  not 
to  be  thought  of.  A  week  after  his  wife's  death 
he  wrote  to  Elizabeth.  He  quietly  assumed  that 
all  arrangements  had  been  made  for  their  mar- 
riage, as  soon  as  he  should  have  got  his  divorce. 
In  his  letter  he  reminded  Elizabeth  there  could 
now  be  no  question  or  scruple  in  regard  to  her 
marrying  him.  He  told  her  he  would  be  in 
Washington  at  the  end  of  the  week,  when  the 
proceedings  in  the  Senate  would  take  place,  and 
that  he  should  expect  to  see  her.  He  asked  her 
to  write  and  let  him  know  where  they  should 
meet. 

Elizabeth  realized  that  she  had  gone  too  far  to 
refuse  Clavering  a  meeting,  nor,  in  fact,  did  she 
desire  to  avoid  him.  Her  feelings  toward  him 
had  become  more  and  more  chaotic  ;  they  did  not 
remain  the  same  for  an  hour  together.  She  felt 
that  a  powerful  blow  had  been  dealt  her  objection 
to  marrying  him  in  the  removal  of  the  divorce 
[347] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

question  ;  she  doubted  in  her  heart  whether  she 
ever  could  have  been  brought  to  the  point  of 
marrying  him  had  his  wife  not  died. 

And  then  there  had  been  another  interview 
with  McBean.  He  had  told  Elizabeth  he  was 
about  to  leave  Washington  to  be  absent  a  month, 
as  he  was  combining  pleasure  with  business  on  his 
visit  to  America,  but  that  on  his  return,  if  the 
necklace  were  not  forthcoming,  he  should  begin 
legal  proceedings  immediately.  Mr.  McBean  was 
fully  persuaded,  while  he  was  talking  to  Eliza- 
beth, that  the  necklace  was  around  her  neck, 
under  her  high  gown,  or  in  her  pocket,  or  in  a 
secret  drawer  of  her  writing-desk  —  in  any  one  of 
those  strange  places  where  women  keep  their 
valuables.  Elizabeth,  in  truth,  did  not  know 
whether  the  necklace  was  in  America,  Europe, 
Asia,  Africa,  or  Australia. 

Then  Baskerville,  in  spite  of  the  crisis  in  his 
own  affairs,  had  not  neglected  Elizabeth.  He  had 
managed  to  see  McBean,  and  had  discovered  that 
the  solicitor  was  perfectly  justified  in  all  he  had 
done,  from  the  legal  point  of  view.  When  Bas- 
kerville came  to  inquire  how  far  Major  Pelham 
was  responsible  for  what  was  done,  he  was  met  by 
an  icy  reticence  on  the  part  of  Mr.  McBean,  who 
replied  that  Baskerville  was  asking  unprofessional 
[348] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

questions,  and  in  embarrassment  Baskerville  de- 
sisted. It  became  clear,  however,  and  Basker- 
ville so  wrote  to  Elizabeth,  that  her  concealment 
of  the  pawning  of  the  necklace,  and  her  inability 
to  pay  back  the  money  she  had  raised  on  it,  were 
very  serious  matters,  and  she  should  at  once  lay 
the  matter  before  her  father. 

Elizabeth,  however,  had  not  been  able  to  bring 
herself  to  that.  She  thought  of  all  sorts  of  wild 
alternatives,  such  as  asking  Clavering  to  lend  her 
the  money ;  but  her  soul  recoiled  from  that.  She 
even  considered  writing  another  letter  to  Hugh 
Pelham  ;  but  at  that,  too,  her  heart  cried  aloud  in 
protest.  She  did  not  know  where  Pelham  was, 
but  surmised  that  he  was  still  in  West  Africa. 
A  letter  adressed  to  the  War  Office  would  reach 
him  —  but  when  ? 

The  more  she  thought  of  this,  the  simplest  of 
alternatives  and  the  one  urged  by  Baskerville,  the 
more  impossible  it  seemed.  She  had  loved  Pel- 
ham  well  —  loved  him  with  all  her  soul,  her  mind, 
her  heart  ;  and  that,  too,  when  she  was  a  married 
woman,  loving  another  than  her  husband,  without 
the  slightest  stain  of  any  sort  upon  her  mind,  her 
soul,  her  heart.  She  doubted  if  she  would  have 
been  half  so  dutiful  a  wife,  but  for  Pel  ham's  love 
for  her  and  her  love  for  him.  It  seemed  to  her 
[349] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

that  his  respect  was  as  necessary  to  her  as  her 
self-respect.  Their  unfortunate  attachment  had 
been  in  the  highest  sense  elevating.  It  had  not 
required  the  soft  consolation,  the  assurances,  of 
weaker  passions  ;  but,  lofty  and  austere,  it  was  as 
strong  and  as  silent  as  death,  it  seemed  to  be 
everlasting.  And  could  a  thing  seem  to  be  for 
ten  years  of  storm  and  stress  and  not  be? 

As  Heinrich  Heine  says,  it  seemed  to  Elizabeth 
as  if  there  were  no  longer  a  great  God  in  heaven 
since  he  had  made  his  creatures  so  deceitful. 
What  agony  was  Elizabeth  Darrell's?  To  have 
failed  in  her  duty  as  a  wife  would  have  been 
the  surest  way  to  lower  herself  in  Pelham's 


Clavering  had  reckoned  upon  Elizabeth's  nei- 
ther knowing  nor  appreciating  the  effect  of  the 
revelations  about  him ;  in  this,  however,  he  was 
mistaken.  She  had  read  the  newspapers  dili- 
gently and  understood  his  affairs  far  better  than 
Clavering  dreamed.  The  case  had  made  a  tre- 
mendous sensation.  The  tragic  circumstances  of 
the  catastrophe,  the  probable  action  of  the  Senate 
which  was  known  in  advance,  the  far-reaching 
scandals  which  would  result  from  the  making 
public  of  the  findings,  all  combined  to  give  the 
country  a  profound  shock  —  a  shock  so  profound 
[350] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

that  it  was  known  it  would  seriously  jeopardize 
for  the  party  in  power  the  states  in  which  Claver- 
ing  and  his  gang  had  operated. 

Among  public  men  in  Washington  the  feeling 
was  intense.  The  senators  who  from  a  combina- 
tion of  honesty  and  policy  had  advocated  going 
to  the  bottom  of  the  scandals  and  punishing 
everybody  found  guilty,  were  in  the  position  of 
doctors  who  have  successfully  performed  a  haz- 
ardous operation,  but  are  uncertain  whether  the 
patient  will  survive  or  not.  There  was  no  doubt 
that  many  criminal  prosecutions  would  follow, 
but  there  was  a  general  belief  that  Clavering  was 
too  able  and  resourceful  a  man,  and  had  too  much 
money,  to  be  actually  punished  for  the  crimes  he 
had  undoubtedly  committed.  His  real  punish- 
ment was  his  expulsion  from  the  Senate. 

Elizabeth  Darrell  knew  all  these  things,  and 
turned  them  over  in  her  mind  until  she  was  half 
distracted.  Another  thing,  small  to  a  man  but 
large  to  a  woman,  tormented  her.  She  must 
meet  Clavering  —  but  where  ?  Not  in  her  father's 
house;  that  could  only  be  done  secretly,  and 
she  could  not  stoop  to  deceive  her  father.  The 
only  way  she  could  think  of  was  in  the  little 
park,  far  at  the  other  end  of  the  town,  where 
their  first  momentous  meeting  had  taken  place. 
[351] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

So,  feeling  the  humiliation  of  what  she  was  doing, 
Elizabeth  replied  to  Clavering's  letter,  and  named 
a  day  —  the  day  before  the  one  set  for  the  final 
proceedings  in  the  Senate  —  when  she  would  see 
him ;  and  she  named  six  o'clock  in  the  afternoon, 
in  the  little  out-of-the-way  park. 

It  was  March  then  of  a  forward  spring.  The 
day  had  been  one  of  those  sudden  warm  and 
balmy  days  which  come  upon  Washington  at  the 
most  unlikely  seasons.  Already  the  grass  was 
green  and  the  miles  upon  miles  of  shade  trees 
were  full  of  sap  and  the  buds  were  near  to  burst- 
ing. Six  o'clock  was  not  quite  dusk,  but  it  was 
as  late  as  Elizabeth  dared  to  make  her  appoint- 
ment. Her  heart  was  heavy  as  she  walked  along 
the  quiet,  unfamiliar  streets  toward  the  park  — 
as  heavy  as  on  that  day,  only  a  few  months  before, 
when  she  had  returned  to  Washington  after  her 
widowhood.  Then  she  had  been  oppressed  with 
the  thought  that  life  was  over  for  her,  nothing 
interesting  would  ever  again  happen  to  her.  And 
what  had  not  happened  to  her ! 

When  Elizabeth  reached  the  park  she  found 
Clavering  awaiting  her.  He  could  not  but  note 
the  grace  of  her  walk  and  the  beauty  of  her  figure 
as  she  approached  him.  She  was  one  of  those 
women  who  become  more  interesting,  if  less  hand- 
[352] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

some,  under  the  stress  of  feeling.  Her  dark 
eyes  were  appealing,  and  she  sank  rather  than  sat 
upon  the  park  bench  to  which  Clavering  escorted 
her. 

"  You  seem  to  have  taken  my  troubles  to 
heart,"  he  said  with  the  air  and  manner  of  an 
accepted  lover. 

Elizabeth  made  no  reply.  She  had  not  been 
able  to  discover,  in  the  chaos  of  her  emotions, 
how  far  Clavering's  troubles  really  touched  her. 

"  However,"  said  Clavering,  "  the  worst  will  be 
over  to-morrow.  I  wish  you  could  be  in  the 
Senate  gallery,  to  see  how  I  bear  it.  The  vote 
on  expulsion  takes  place  to-morrow,  directly  after 
the  morning  hour,  and  I  know  precisely  the  ma- 
jority against  me  —  it  will  be  quite  enough  to  do 
the  work."  Then  he  added  with  a  cool  smile :  "I 
believe  if  you  could  be  present,  you  would  realize 
what  a  pack  of  rascals  have  sacrificed  me  to  politi- 
cal expediency  !  Unluckily  I  can't  offer  you  a 
seat  in  the  Senators'  Gallery,  as  I  might  have 
done  a  short  while  ago.  The  fools  think  I  will 
stay  away,  but  I  shall  be  in  my  seat,  and  from 
it  I  shall  make  my  defence  and  my  promise  to 
return  to  the  Senate  by  the  mandate  of  my  state. 
It  will  sound  well,  but  to  tell  you  the  truth  I 
have  no  more  wish  to  return  than  the  legislature 
2J,  [353] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

has  the  intention  of  returning  me.     I  have  some- 
thing pleasanter  in  view  —  it  is  life  with  you." 

Elizabeth,  beguiled  in  spite  of  herself,  as  women 
are  by  courage,  glanced  at  Clavering.  Yes,  he 
was  not  afraid  of  any  man  or  of  anything,  while 
she  was  consumed  with  terror  over  a  paltry  five 
hundred  pounds  and  the  loss  of  a  necklace  worth 
only  a  trifle  in  Clavering's  eyes.  She  longed  that 
he  would  break  through  her  prohibition  and  speak 
about  the  necklace.  But  Clavering  did  not,  and 
he  never  intended  to  do  so.  He  knew  very  well 
that  Elizabeth's  necessities  were  his  best  advo- 
cates, and  he  did  not  purpose  silencing  any  of 
them. 

Elizabeth's  reply,  after  a  pause,  to  Clavering's 
remark  was  :  "  I  shouldn't  like  to  see  you  to-mor- 
row. It  will  be  too  tragic." 

"It's  a  pity  that  I'm  not  divorced  instead  of 
being  so  recent  a  widower,"  Clavering  replied. 
"  Then  you  could  marry  me  at  the  moment  of 
misfortune,  as  Richard  Baskerville  proposes  to 
marry  my  daughter  Anne.  It  would  be  a  great 
help  to  me  now,  if  it  were  possible.  As  it  is,  we 
shall  have  to  postpone  our  marriage  until  the 
autumn." 

"  No,"  replied  Elizabeth,  decisively,  "  it  cannot 
be  until  next  year." 

[354] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

Clavering's  eyes  flashed.  It  was  the  first  time 
that  she  had  ever  fully  admitted  that  she  meant 
to  marry  him,  although  he  had  from  the  beginning 
assumed  it.  He  had  very  little  doubt  that  he 
could  induce  her  to  shorten  the  time  of  waiting. 

"  We  will  talk  about  that  later.  Meanwhile  I 
suppose  you  will  stay  here  with  your  father.  We 
can't  enjoy  the  London  house  this  season,  but  I 
shall  go  abroad  in  June.  I  shall  have  straight- 
ened things  out  by  that  time,  and  I  can  select  a 
house.  It  will  be  as  fine  a  one  as  that  which  I 
have  lived  in  here.  I  can  ship  all  the  furnishings, 
pictures,  and  plate,  with  the  horses  and  carriages, 
to  London  in  advance,  and  have  your  establish- 
ment ready  for  you  when  you  arrive.  Perhaps  it 
would  be  better  for  us  to  be  married  in  London." 

Elizabeth  Darrell  was  not  what  is  called  a  mer- 
cenary woman.  She  had  hesitated  when  offered 
vast  wealth,  and  had  even  declined  it  on  the 
terms  first  offered  to  her  ;  nor  did  she  believe 
that  she  would  ever  have  agreed  to  marry  Claver- 
ing,  in  the  event  of  his  divorce,  but  for  the  re- 
moval of  her  scruples  of  conscience  on  finding 
that  his  first  marriage  was  illegal.  But  these 
words  of  Clavering's  about  the  London  establish- 
ment brought  to  mind  her  former  life  there.  She 
made  a  rapid  mental  comparison  of  Clavering  with 
[355] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

poor,  honest,  brave,  stupid  dead  Jack  Darrell ; 
with  Pelham  as  he  had  been  ;  with  her  father  ; 
and  the  comparison  staggered  and  revolted  her. 
If  it  were  written,  however,  in  the  book  of  destiny 
that  she  should  marry  Clavering,  it  were  better 
that  they  should  be  married  in  London,  as  he  sug- 
gested. She  would  rather  escape  her  father's  eye 
when  that  transaction  took  place,  and  nobody  else 
in  the  world  cared  how  or  when  she  was  married 
or  what  might  become  of  her. 

Clavering  spent  the  time  of  their  interview  in 
planning  their  future  life  together.  He  offered 
her  luxury  in  every  form,  but  he  was  too  astute  a 
man  to  make  his  purchase  of  her  too  obvious.  He 
by  no  means  left  out  his  love  for  her,  which  was 
in  truth  the  master  passion  of  his  life  just  then. 
But  he  did  not  force  it  upon  Elizabeth,  seeing 
that  she  was  as  yet  restless  and  but  half  tamed  to 
his  hand.  Elizabeth  listened  to  him,  with  the 
conviction  growing  in  her  mind  that  she  must 
marry  this  man. 

Their  conversation  lasted  barely  half  an  hour. 
Clavering  urged  Elizabeth  to  meet  him  again 
before  he  left  Washington,  which  would  be  the 
next  night,  at  midnight ;  but  to  this  Elizabeth 
would  not  agree.  Clavering  saw  that  he  must 
wait  at  least  six  months  before  she  would  tolerate 
[356] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

any  attentions  from  him,  and  he  quickly  made  up 
his  mind  that  it  was  best  not  to  urge  her  too 
much  now.  He  had  practically  received  her 
promise  to  marry  him  at  the  end  of  a  year,  and 
considering  the  obstacles  he  had  to  contend  with 
he  felt  pretty  well  satisfied.  As  on  the  former 
occasion  when  they  had  met  in  the  little  park, 
Clavering  went  after  a  cab  for  Elizabeth,  put  her 
in  it,  and  they  separated. 

Elizabeth  spent  a  solitary  evening.  The  calm 
which  reigned  in  Clavering's  breast  was  by  no 
means  her  portion.  She  felt  that  she  had  finally 
committed  herself  to  marry  him,  and  the  prospect 
frightened  her.  She  recalled  Baskerville's  words 
—  the  "  dreadful  possibilities  "  which  might  await 
a  woman  married  to  Clavering.  Their  contempla- 
tion frightened  her  more  than  ever.  She  was  so 
absorbed  in  her  own  troubles  that  she  scarcely 
gave  a  thought  to  Clavering's  impending  fate  on 
the  morrow.  She  remained  up  late,  and  the  clock 
had  struck  midnight  before  her  light  was  out. 

Once  in  bed,  Elizabeth  was  seized  with  a  mad- 
dening restlessness,  against  which  she  fought  for 
four  hours.  When  the  sky  of  night  was  wan  and 
pale  with  the  coming  dawn,  she  rose  and,  going  to 
her  writing- table,  began  to  write  steadily.  Her 
letter  was  to  Hugh  Pelham.  She  told  him  every- 
[357] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

thing,  without  concealment  —  the  story  of  the 
need  that  made  her  pawn  the  necklace,  the  story 
of  Clavering,  the  story  of  her  life  in  Washington, 
of  her  grief  and  amazement  at  what  seemed  to  be 
Pelham's  persecution  of  her,  and  it  closed  with  a 
torrent  of  reproaches  that  came  from  the  depths 
of  her  heart. 

She  sealed  the  letter  and  addressed  it  to  Pelham 
in  the  care  of  the  War  Office  at  London.  She 
had  no  idea  where  Pelham  was  or  when  the  letter 
would  reach  him  ;  but  some  time  or  other  he 
would  get  it,  and  then  he  would  know  how  cruel 
his  conduct  was  and  how  far-reaching  was  the  effect 
of  his  ill-treatment  of  her.  She  had  glossed  over 
nothing  about  Clavering,  she  had  painted  him  in 
his  true  colors  ;  and  she  had  told  Pelham  that  but 
for  him  there  would  have  been  no  temptation  for 
her  to  have  married  such  a  man  as  Clavering. 

When  she  had  finished  and  sealed  and  stamped 
her  letter,  Elizabeth  went  to  the  window  and  drew 
the  curtain.  The  flush  that  precedes  the  dawn 
was  over  the  opaline  sky;  it  was  the  beginning  of 
an  exquisite  spring  day.  The  city  lay  still  and 
quiet  ;  only  one  footfall  was  heard,  that  of  the 
postman  collecting  the  letters  from  the  mail-box 
at  the  corner.  As  he  passed  briskly  along  the 
street  under  Elizabeth's  window,  a  letter  softly 
[358] 


MRS.  DAKRELL 

fluttered  down  and  fell  at  his  feet.  He  glanced 
up  and  saw  a  window  high  above  him  being  closed. 
The  postman  picked  up  the  letter,  put  it  in  his 
bag,  and  went  on,  whistling. 

Elizabeth,  up  in  her  bedroom,  threw  herself 
upon  her  bed  and  sank  into  a  heavy  and  dream- 
less sleep  that  lasted  until  Serena  knocked  at  her 
door  at  nine  o'clock.  Elizabeth  rose,  dressed, 
and  breakfasted  like  a  person  in  a  dream.  She 
remembered  her  letter  instantly,  and  the  recollec- 
tion of  it  made  her  uneasy.  Gradually  her  un- 
easiness turned  to  an  agony  of  regret.  She  would 
have  made  almost  any  sacrifice  to  recall  the  letter, 
but  she  supposed  it  was  now  impossible. 

Her  great  concern  made  her  forget  all  about 
Clavering's  impending  doom  that  day,  until  quite 
noon.  As  she  began  to  consider  it,  the  spirit  of 
restlessness  which  seemed  to  possess  her  impelled 
her  to  wish  that  she  could  witness  the  scene  in  the 
Senate  chamber.  It  might  take  her  mind  from 
her  letter,  which  burned  in  her  memory  and  was 
eating  her  heart  out  with  shame  and  unavailing 
repentance.  She  knew  there  would  be  vast 
crowds  at  the  Capitol,  but  she  felt  sure  that  not 
one  of  her  few  acquaintances  in  Washington 
would  be  there. 

About  one  o'clock  she  suddenly  resolved  to  go 
[359] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

to  the  Capitol.  Covering  her  face,  as  well  as  her 
hat,  with  a  thick  black  veil,  she  started  for  the 
white-domed  building  on  the  hill.  When  she 
reached  the  plaza,  she  found  a  great  crowd  sur- 
rounding the  north  wing.  Not  in  the  memory  of 
man  had  such  an  event  as  the  expulsion  of  a 
senator  occurred,  and  it  was  the  very  thing  to 
stimulate  the  unhealthy  curiosity  of  thousands. 
A  steady  stream  poured  into  the  doorways  and 
jammed  the  corridors.  Elizabeth  doubted  whether 
she  would  ever  get  nearer  than  the  Senate  corri- 
dor, much  less  be  able  to  get  into  the  small  public 
gallery.  She  noticed,  however,  that  the  multitude 
was  pouring  into  the  ground-floor  entrance  ;  so 
she  determined  to  mount  the  long,  wide  flight  of 
steps  on  the  east  front  and  enter  the  rotunda 
through  the  great  bronze  doors. 

It  was  a  beautiful  spring  day,  and  the  crowd 
was  a  well-dressed  and  cheerful  one.  Nobody 
would  have  dreamed  that  they  were  about  to 
attend  a  great  public  tragedy.  As  Elizabeth 
reached  the  top  of  the  flight,  she  turned  involun- 
tarily to  look  at  the  beautiful  panorama  outspread 
before  her  in  the  Southern  sunshine.  Fair  and 
faintly  green  lay  the  park-like  gardens  around 
the  Capitol,  while  the  golden  dome  of  the  Na- 
tional Library  flashed  and  gleamed  in  the  noon- 
[360] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

day  radiance.  Never  before  had  she  thought 
Washington  a  joyous-looking  city,  but  to-day, 
with  sunshine  and  life  and  motion,  with  its  ani- 
mated throng  of  persons,  this  continual  passing  to 
and  fro,  it  reminded  her  of  Paris  on  a  fete  day. 

While  Elizabeth  was  looking  upon  the  charm- 
ing scene  outspread  before  her,  she  heard  the 
sound  of  trampling  hoofs  and  the  roll  of  a 
carriage  below.  Clavering,  in  his  handsomest 
brougham,  with  a  superb  pair  of  horses,  had  just 
driven  up.  The  coachman  and  footman  wore  the 
newest,  smartest,  and  blackest  of  mourning  liver- 
ies for  the  mistress  they  had  seen  ignored,  when 
not  insulted,  during  the  whole  term  of  their 
service.  Forth  from  the  carriage,  a  cynosure 
for  the  staring,  curious  crowd,  stepped  Clavering. 
He,  too,  was  dressed  in  new  and  immaculate 
mourning,  with  a  crape-covered  hat. 

Elizabeth  shrank  behind  one  of  the  huge  pillars, 
but  from  it  she  saw  Clavering's  dignified  and  ever 
graceful  air  as  he  braved  the  glances  of  the  mul- 
titude. The  lower  entrance  being  jammed  with 
people,  he  leisurely  mounted  the  great  flight  of 
steps,  a  thing  he  had  never  before  done  in  all  his 
senatorial  service.  The  crowd  watched  him  with 
admiration  and  gratitude  —  it  gave  them  the 
more  time  and  the  better  opportunity  of  seeing 
[361] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

him.  He  passed  close  enough  to  Elizabeth  to 
have  touched  her,  as  she  stood  quaking  with 
shame  and  fear  ;  but,  looking  neither  to  the  right 
nor  to  the  left,  he  walked  on,  calm,  courageous, 
and  apparently  at  ease  with  himself  and  all  the 
world. 

Elizabeth,  still  moved  by  an  impulse  stronger 
than  her  will,  pressed  forward  througli  the  ro- 
tunda into  the  corridors.  They  were  packed, 
and  the  doors  to  the  public  galleries  had  long 
been  closed.  Elizabeth  found  herself  in  the 
midst  of  a  surging  crowd,  in  the  corridor  leading 
to  the  reserved  gallery,  the  place  to  which  Clav- 
ering  had  told  her  he  could  no  longer  admit  her. 
While  she  was  standing  there,  crushed  on  either 
side,  a  pathway  was  opened,  and  a  party  of  sena- 
tors' wives  approached  the  door.  At  the  same 
moment  it  was  opened  and  some  people  came  out. 
In  the  slight  confusion  several  tried  to  get  in  ; 
the  doorkeepers,  trying  to  separate  the  sheep  from 
the  goats,  pushed  the  intruders  back  and  pushed 
Elizabeth  in  with  the  senatorial  party. 

"But  I  have  no  right  in  here,"  she  said  hur- 
riedly to  the  doorkeeper  who  shoved  her  into  the 
gallery. 

"  Just  go  in,  madam,  and  let  me  shut  these 
people  out,"  replied  the  doorkeeper,  seeing  the 
[362] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

necessity  for  closing  the  door  at  once.  So  Eliza- 
beth found  herself  in  the  last  place  either  she  or 
Clavering  expected  her  to  be,  the  gallery  set  apart 
for  the  senatorial  families. 

It  was  then  almost  two  o'clock,  when  the  morn- 
ing hour  expired,  and  the  first  business  to  be 
taken  up  was  the  resolution  of  expulsion  against 
Senator  Clavering.  There  was  a  subdued  tremor 
over  the  whole  scene  ;  the  senators  who  were  to 
do  a  great  act  of  public  justice  upon  one  of  their 
own  number  were  deeply  moved  over  it.  Not 
one  of  them  had  ever  before  taken  part  in  such 
proceedings,  and  the  species  of  civil  death  they 
were  about  to  inflict  on  a  man  once  counted 
worthy  to  sit  among  them  was  in  some  respects 
worse  than  the  death  of  the  body.  The  serious- 
ness of  the  occasion  affected  every  one  present ; 
a  psychic  wave  of  shame,  regret,  and  solemnity 
swept  over  the  whole  assemblage,  and  a  strange 
stillness  reigned  among  the  people  who  filled  the 
galleries.  Nearly  every  senator  was  in  his  seat, 
and  the  space  back  of  them  was  crowded  with 
members  of  the  other  house  and  persons  who  had 
the  privileges  of  the  floor. 

Clavering  sat  in  his  accustomed  place,  a  cool 
and  apparently  disinterested  observer  of  the  pro- 
ceedings. His  presence  was  highly  disconcerting 
[363] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

to  the  committee  which  had  prepared  the  report, 
and  indeed  to  every  senator  present.  It  had  been 
hoped  that  Clavering  would  absent  himself ;  there 
were  no  precedents  in  the  present  generation  for 
such  proceedings,  and  it  would  have  been  alto- 
gether easier  if  Clavering  had  chosen  to  remain 
away.  But  as  he  was  a  senator  up  to  the  moment 
the  vote  was  taken,  no  one  could  say  him  nay. 

Elizabeth  found  no  trouble  in  concealing  her- 
self behind  the  large  hats  and  feathers  of  the 
ladies  in  the  reserved  gallery,  and  she  could 
observe  Clavering  closely.  She  thought  she  had 
never  seen  him  look  so  handsome  and  even  dis- 
tinguished in  appearance.  Had  he  only  been 
honest  !  Some  thoughts  like  these  raced  through 
Clavering's  brain.  He  recalled  Baskerville's  re- 
mark, "There  is  no  real  substitute  for  honesty," 
and  he  remembered  several  occasions  when  he 
could  have  afforded  to  be  honest  and  had  not 
been,  and  he  regretted  it.  Most  of  all  he  re- 
gretted not  having  taken  greater  precautions 
when  he  was  dishonest. 

At  last,  the  morning  hour  having  expired,  the 
next  business  on  the  calendar  was  the  reading  of 
the  report  of  the  committee  of  investigation  on 
the  affairs  of  the  K.  F.  R.  land  grants  and  the 
corporations  connected  therewith.  The  Vice- 
[364] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

President,  looking  pale  and  worried,  recognized 
the  chairman  of  the  committee,  who  looked  paler 
and  more  worried.  The  stillness  resolved  itself 
into  a  deathlike  silence,  broken  only  by  the  reso- 
nant tones  of  the  reading  clerk.  It  was  not  a  long 
report  —  the  reading  of  it  lasted  scarcely  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour;  but  it  vas  a  terrible  one. 
As  the  charges  were  named,  and  declared  proved, 
a  kind  of  horror  appeared  to  settle  down  upon  the 
Senate  chamber.  The  senators  who  had  been 
lukewarm  in  the  matter  were  shamed  for  them- 
selves; those  who  had  been  charged  with  the 
execution  of  justice  were  shamed  for  the  cause  of 
popular  government.  If  such  things  were  possi- 
ble in  a  government  by  the  people  and  for  the 
people  and  of  the  people,  it  was  an  indictment 
against  the  whole  people. 

During  it  all  Clavering  sat  with  unshaken 
calmness.  Not  by  a  glance  out  of  his  handsome, 
stern  eyes  nor  the  least  variation  of  color  in  his 
clear  and  ruddy  complexion  did  he  indicate  the 
smallest  agitation.  Not  even  the  last  clause, 
which  recommended  his  expulsion  from  the  Sen- 
ate of  the  United  States,  and  which  every  member 
of  the  committee  signed,  without  a  dissenting 
voice,  had  the  power  to  move  him  from  his  cool 
composure. 

[365] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

When  the  reading  was  concluded,  the  chairman 
of  the  committee  rose  and  made  a  few  explana- 
tions of  the  report.  He  spoke  in  an  agitated  and 
broken  voice.  Before  introducing  the  resolution 
of  expulsion,  he  hesitated  and  looked  toward 
Clavering.  Clavering  rose,  and  on  being  recog- 
nized by  the  chair,  asked  to  be  heard  in  a  brief 
defence. 

Although  he  had  always  been  a  hard  worker  in 
his  committee-room,  Clavering  had  not  often  got 
upon  his  feet  to  speak  in  the  Senate  chamber. 
As  he  had  told  Elizabeth  months  before,  he  always 
knew  his  limitations  as  a  debater.  Having  been 
used  to  lording  over  men  for  many  years,  the 
courteous  assumption  that  every  senator  is  a  wise 
man  had  never  sat  well  on  him.  When  he  spoke 
he  had  always  been  listened  to,  because  he  always 
had  something  to  say ;  but  he  had  shown  his 
usual  good  sense  and  judgment  by  not  measuring 
himself  with  the  giants  of  debate.  To-day,  how- 
ever, he  had  nothing  more  to  hope  or  fear  from 
those  grave  men,  whose  scorn  of  him  was  swal- 
lowed up  in  the  execution  of  justice  upon  him. 

As  he  rose  to  speak,  to  many  minds  came  back 

that  old  Homeric  line,  "As  the  passing  leaves, 

so  is  the  passing  of   men  ;  "   and   this   man  was 

passing  from  life   into  civil  death  before  their 

[366] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

eyes.  Clavering,  in  his  beautifully  clear  and  well- 
modulated  voice,  began  his  defence,  if  defence  it 
could  be  called.  He  told  briefly  but  impressively 
of  his  youthful  struggles,  of  his  lack  of  education, 
of  the  wild  life  of  the  West  into  which  he  was 
inducted  early,  of  the  disregard  of  written  laws  in 
the  administration  of  the  justice  with  which  he 
was  familiar,  how  the  strong  men  ruled  by  virtue 
of  their  strength,  how  great  enterprises  were 
carried  through  by  forces  not  understood  or  even 
known  in  old  and  settled  communities.  His  story 
was  like  a  book  out  of  the  "  Odyssey."  He  de- 
scribed the  effect  of  his  operations  in 'large  sec- 
tions of  country,  which  made  him  hosts  of  friends 
and  hosts  of  enemies.  He  subtly  called  attention 
by  indirection  to  that  unwritten  law,  noted  by  a 
British  general  in  India,  that  there  were  in  all 
partly  civilized  countries  certain  necessary  and 
salutary  rascalities,  to  be  carried  through  by  the 
strong  and  wise  against  the  weak  and  foolish. 
Coming  down  to  his  own  case,  he  made  no  appeal 
for  mercy,  and  offered  no  plea  in  abatement.  On 
the  contrary,  he  became  distinctly  aggressive,  and 
heaped  ridicule  upon  the  committee  of  elderly 
gentlemen  sitting  in  their  luxurious  committee- 
room,  passing  judgment  on  the  storm  and  stress 
of  men  and  things  as  unknown  to  them  as  the 
[367] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

inhabitants  of  another  planet.  His  conclusion 
was  a  ringing  defiance  of  his  enemies,  a  promise 
of  vengeance  upon  them,  and  a  solemn  declara- 
tion that  he  would  return,  rehabilitated,  to  the 
Senate  of  the  United  States,  and  every  man  who 
believed  him  guilty  might  count  himself  the  ever- 
lasting enemy  of  James  Clavering  from  that  day 
forth. 

When  he  sat  down  there  was  from  the  public 
galleries  an  involuntary  burst  of  applause,  which 
was  instantly  suppressed.  Two  or  three  women 
wept  aloud;  an  aged  senator  attempted  to  rise 
from  his  seat,  fell  back,  and  was  carried  out  half- 
fainting.  There  were  a  few  minutes  of  nervous 
quiet  and  whispering,  and  then  the  final  proceed- 
ings began.  They  were  short  and  exquisitely 
painful.  The  resolution  of  expulsion  was  put, 
and  received  a  three-fourths  vote  in  its  favor. 
Half  a  dozen  senators  in  a  group  voted  against 
the  resolution,  and  a  few  others  were  absent  or 
refrained  from  voting.  Of  the  half-dozen  sena- 
tors who  voted  in  Clavering's  favor,  some  voted 
in  a  spirit  of  sheer  perversity,  and  the  rest  by 
absolute  stupidity.  When  the  result  was  de- 
clared amid  a  deathlike  silence,  Clavering  rose 
and,  making  a  low  bow  toward  the  senators  who 
had  voted  for  him,  left  his  seat  and  went  toward 
[368] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

the  aisle.  As  he  reached  it  he  turned  to  the  chair 
and  made  another  bow,  full  of  dignity  and  re- 
spect; and  then,  without  the  least  flurry  or  dis- 
composure, retired  from  the  Senate  chamber 
which  it  had  been  the  summit  of  his  lifelong 
ambition  to  enter  and  of  which  he  was  never 
again  to  cross  the  threshold.  He  was  to  see  no 
more  service  of  the  great  Demos.  But  not  Alci- 
biades,  when  he  called  the  Athenians  a  pack  of 
dogs,  looked  more  sincerely  contemptuous  than 
did  James  Clavering  of  the  United  States  Senate 
when,  a  disgraced  and  branded  man,  he  walked 
out  of  the  Senate  chamber. 


2s  [369] 


Chapter  Eighteen 

IN  the  first  week  of  April  Richard  Baskerville 
and  Anne  Clavering  were  married,  in  the  little 
Iowa  town  where  Mrs.  Clavering's  family  lived 
and  where  Anne  had  remained  since  her  mother's 
death.  The  wedding  took  place  at  Mr.  Joshua 
Hicks's  house,  one  of  the  best  in  the  town. 

Mr.  Hicks  was  Anne's  uncle  by  marriage,  a 
leading  merchant  in  the  place  ;  and  a  better  man 
or  a  better  citizen  could  not  be  found  in  the  state 
of  Iowa.  He  wore  ready-made  clothes,  weighed 
out  sugar  and  tea  and  sold  calico  by  the  yard, 
was  a  person  of  considerable  wit  and  intelligence, 
and  had  a  lofty  self-respect  which  put  him  at  ease 
in  every  society.  His  wife  was  a  younger,  better- 
looking,  and  better-educated  woman  than  Mrs. 
Clavering,  and  as  good  as  that  poor  woman  had 
been.  Their  sons  and  daughters  were  ornaments 
of  the  high  school,  had  mapped  out  careers  for 
themselves,  but  meantime  treated  their  parents 
with  affectionate  deference.  In  their  drawing- 
room,  called  a  front  parlor,  furnished  in  red  plush 
and  with  chromos  on  the  walls,  Anne  Clavering 
[370] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

was  made  the  wife  of  Richard  Baskerville, 
the  descendant  of  the  oldest  landed  aristocracy 
in  Maryland  and  Virginia.  Clavering  himself 
had  said  he  would  be  present,  but  at  the  last 
minute  telegraphed  that  he  would  be  unable  to 
come,  having  been  suddenly  called  to  Washing- 
ton. He  sent  Anne  a  handsome  cheque  as  a 
wedding  gift.  Elise  and  Lydia,  who  had  spent 
the  intervening  time  between  their  mother's  fu- 
neral and  their  sister's  marriage  in  shopping  in 
Chicago  and  preparing  for  a  precipitate  trip  to 
Europe,  returned  to  the  little  town  and  remained 
over  a  train  in  order  to  be  present  at  the  wedding. 
Baskerville  would  have  been  glad  if  they  had 
decided  to  stay  away.  Reginald  Clavering  gave 
his  sister  away. 

It  was  the  plainest  and  simplest  wedding  im- 
aginable. The  bride  wore  a  white  muslin,  made 
by  the  village  dressmaker.  The  bridegroom 
arrived  on  foot  from  the  village  tavern,  where  he 
had  been  staying.  They  began  their  wedding 
tour  by  driving  away  in  the  Hicks  family  surrey 
to  another  little  country  village  seven  miles  off. 
It  was  a  golden  April  afternoon,  with  an  aroma 
of  spring  in  the  air;  and  the  fields  and  orchards 
echoed  with  songs  of  birds  —  it  was  their  mating- 
time.  Mr,  Hicks's  hired  man,  who  drove  the 
[371] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

married  lovers  to  their  destination,  where  they 
spent  their  honeymoon,  declared  he  had  never  seen 
a  bride  and  bridegroom  so  little  spoony.  He  had  in 
truth,  although  he  knew  it  not,  never  seen  a  bride 
and  bridegroom  who  loved  each  other  so  much. 

Clavering's  call  to  Washington,  which  pre- 
vented him  from  attending  his  daughter's  wed- 
ding, in  reality  consisted  of  a  few  lines  from 
Elizabeth  Darrell.  After  that  March  day  in 
the  Senate  chamber,  Elizabeth  fell  into  a  settled 
listlessness.  She  felt  herself  obliged  to  marry 
Clavering  eventually,  as  the  only  way  out  of  an 
intolerable  position;  and  this  listlessness  from 
which  she  suffered  always  falls  upon  those  who 
succumb  to  what  is  reckoned  as  irrevocable  fate. 
The  spring  was  in  its  full  splendor,  and  the  town 
was  beautiful  in  all  its  glory  of  green  trees  and 
emerald  grass,  and  great  clumps  of  flowering 
shrubs  and  sweet-scented  hyacinths  and  cro- 
cuses and  tulips.  No  city  in  the  world  has  in 
it  so  much  sylvan  beauty  as  Washington,  and  in 
the  spring  it  is  a  place  of  enchanting  verdure. 
All  this  awakening  of  the  spring  made  Elizabeth 
Darrell  only  the  more  sad,  the  more  dispirited. 
The  old,  old  feeling  came  upon  her  of  the  dis- 
sonance of  nature  and  man  —  the  world  beauti- 
ful, and  man  despairing. 

[872] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

Reading,  her  sole  resource,  no  longer  amused 
her.  It  was  a  solace  she  had  tried,  and  it  had 
failed  her;  so  she  read  no  more,  nor  thought, 
nor  worked,  nor  did  anything  but  quietly  endure. 
She  affected  cheerfulness  when  she  met  her  father 
in  the  afternoons,  and  General  Brandon,  whom 
a  child  could  deceive,  thought  how  improved  in 
spirits  she  had  grown  since  the  autumn.  The 
General's  confidence  in  Clavering  continued  quite 
unshaken,  and  he  proclaimed  solemnly  that  no  man 
in  public  life,  since  the  foundation  of  the  govern- 
ment, had  been  so  hounded  and  persecuted  as  "that 
high-toned  gentleman,  sir,  ex-Senator  Clavering." 

Next  to  the  thought  of  marrying  Clavering,  the 
most  heartbreaking  thing  to  Elizabeth  was  the 
memory  of  the  rash  letter  she  had  written  to 
Hugh  Pelham.  The  only  mitigation  of  this  was 
that  he  would  not  get  it  for  many  months,  per- 
haps never.  Her  cheeks  burned  at  every  recol- 
lection of  it.  The  month  had  passed  away  at  the 
end  of  which  McBean  had  promised  to  appear, 
but  so  far  she  had  heard  and  seen  nothing  more 
of  him.  She  felt  sure,  however,  that  McBean  had 
not  forgotten  her,  and  she  looked  for  him  daily. 
Then  she  must  ask  Clavering  for  money,  and  that 
would  settle  her  fate. 

One  soft  spring  night  she  sat  at'  the  open  win- 
[373] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

dow  of  the  drawing-room,  looking  out  on  the  quiet 
street,  where  the  great  Clavering  house  loomed 
dark  and  silent  and  deserted.  There  was  no  light 
in  the  drawing-room  where  Elizabeth  sat,  but  a 
gas-jet  in  the  hall  cast  a  flame  of  yellow  radiance 
in  at  the  doorway.  Elizabeth  sat  in  the  shadow 
and  the  silence.  Suddenly  a  peremptory  ring  was 
heard  at  the  bell,  and  in  a  minute  or  two  Serena 
entered  the  room  and  handed  Elizabeth  a  white 
envelope  with  a  telegram  in  it. 

Elizabeth  had  more  than  the  usual  feminine 
dread  of  a  telegraphic  despatch,  and  she  held 
the  envelope  in  her  hand  for  ten  minutes  before 
she  could  summon  courage  to  open  it.  Only  Clav- 
ering or  McBean  could  be  telegraphing  her,  and  to 
hear  from  either  meant  a  stab.  At  last  she  forced 
herself  to  tear  the  envelope  open.  It  was  a  cable- 
gram from  London,  and  read  :  — 

"Your  letter  just  received.  Am  sailing  for 
America  next  Saturday.  You  must  not,  shall 
not,  marry  Clavering.  Why  did  you  not  write 
me  before?  HUGH  PELHAM." 

t 

Serena,  who  dreaded  telegrams,  went  back  to 
her   own   regions.      Presently  she   returned   and 
looked   in  the  drawing-room  door  at  Elizabeth. 
[374] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

She  was  still  sitting  by  the  open  window  in  the 
half  darkness,  in  the  same  position  in  which  she 
had  been  half  an  hour  before.  The  colored  woman, 
who  knew  and  had  known  all  the  time  that  Eliza- 
beth was  unhappy,  went  away  and  was  troubled  in 
mind.  Half  an  hour  later  she  returned.  Eliza- 
beth had  changed  her  position  slightly.  She  was 
resting  her  elbows  on  the  window-sill,  and  her 
face  was  buried  in  her  hands. 

"  Miss  'Liz'beth,"  said  Serena,  in  her  soft  voice, 
and  laying  a  hard,  honest,  sympathetic  black  hand 
on  Elizabeth's  shoulder,  "  fur  de  Lord's  sake,  doan' 
'stress  yo'sef  so.  Doan'  yo'  marry  dat  Clavering 
man,  nor  any  'urr  man,  ef  you  doan'  want  to. 
Me  and  de  Gin'l  will  teck  keer  on  you.  Doan' 
yo'  trouble  'bout  nothin'  't  all,  honey." 

"  Oh,  Serena,"  cried  Elizabeth,  raising  a  pale, 
glorified,  serene  face  and  throwing  her  arms 
around  Serena's  black  neck,  "I  am  the  hap- 
piest person  in  the  world  !  He  is  coming  !  He 
will  start  day  after  to-morrow.  Oh,  Serena,  I  am 
not  distressed,  I  am  not  frightened  any  more  !  " 

"  'Tain'  dat  Clavering  man  !  "  answered  Serena. 
She  alone  of  the  whole  world  had  suspected  Clav- 
ering's  intentions. 

"  No,  no,  no !  It  is  another  man  -r-  the  man  I  —  " 
Elizabeth,  without  finishing  the  sentence,  slipped 
[375] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

out  of  Serena's  arms,  upstairs  to  her  own  room,  to 
be  alone  with  her  happiness. 

Although  she  had  heard  Clavering's  name 
spoken,  it  was  near  midnight  before  she  really 
gave  him  a  thought.  Then  she  wrote  him  a  few 
lines,  very  humble,  very  apologetic  ;  but  no  man 
of  sense  on  earth  could  fail  to  know,  on  reading 
them,  that  the  woman  who  wrote  them  was  fixed 
in  her  resolution  not  to  marry  him.  And  as  in 
the  case  of  the  former  letter,  she  watched  for  the 
passing  postman  in  the  early  morning  and  dropped 
the  letter  at  his  feet. 

She  summoned  up  courage  to  tell  her  father 
next  day  that  Pelham  was  coming.  "  And  I  am 
sure,"  she  said,  blushing  and  faltering,  "  all  will 
be  right  between  us,  and  he  will  explain  all  that 
seemed  unkind  in  his  conduct  to  me." 

General  Brandon  was  sure  of  it,  too,  just  as  he 
was  sure  everybody  meant  to  do  right  on  all 
occasions,  and  was  as  pleased  at  the  notion  of 
rehabilitating  Pelham  as  if  somebody  had  left 
him  a  block  of  stock  in  the  Standard  Oil 
Company. 

Elizabeth   scarcely  knew  how  the   next   week 

passed,  so   great  was  her  exaltation.     It  is   said 

that  the  highesjt  form  of  pleasure  is  release  from 

pain.     She  had  that,  and  other  joys  besides.     It 

[376] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

was  to  hejr  as  if  the  earth  had  at  last  recovered 
its  balance,  with  Pelham  once  more  her  friend. 
She  did  not  dare  to  whisper  anything  more,  even 
to  herself.  And  every  day  brought  her  nearer 
to  that  hour  —  that  poignant  hour  —  when  she 
should  see  Pelham  once  more  as  he  had  always 
been  to  her.  She  scanned  the  newspapers,  and 
found  what  steamers  sailed  on  the  Saturday. 
She  guessed  by  which  one  Pelham  would  sail. 
She  watched  out  eagerly  when  they  should  be 
reported,  and  the  morning  and  afternoon  papers 
were  in  her  hands  by  the  time  they  were  left  at 
the  door. 

On  the  Saturday  afternoon,  which  was  warm 
and  summer-like,  Elizabeth  was  watching  at  the 
window  for  the  afternoon  newspaper  —  the  morn- 
ing newspaper  had  not  chronicled  the  arrival  of 
any  of  the  Saturday  steamers.  When  the  negro 
newsboy  threw  it  on  the  doorway,  she  ran  out, 
and  in  her  eagerness  stood  bareheaded  on  the 
steps,  looking  for  the  names  of  the  incoming 
steamers.  She  found  them  —  all  the  Saturday 
steamers  had  arrived  to  the  day,  and  at  an  early 
hour.  And  Hugh  Pelham  might  come  at  any 
moment !  The  thought  brought  the  red  blood 
to  her  cheeks  and  a  quivering  smile  to  her  lips. 

She  looked  down  the  street,  under  an  archway 
[377] 


MRS.    DARRELL 

of  green,  where  played  a  fountain  in  a  little  open 
space,  with  brilliant  tulip  beds.  The  avenue 
into  which  the  street  debouched  was  gay  with 
carriages  and  autos  and  merry,  well-dressed  girls 
and  men,  tripping  along  by  twos  and  threes.  As 
she  gazed  toward  it,  a  hansom  clattered  up  and 
in  it  sat  Clavering.  His  arrival  was  so  sudden 
that  he  could  not  but  note  the  change  in  Eliza- 
beth. He  had  thought  on  his  first  glance  that 
he  had  never  seen  her  look  so  youthful  and  so 
handsome.  She  had  in  truth  regained  much  of 
her  lost  beauty,  and  when  she  saw  him  and  recog- 
nized him,  the  pallor,  the  shame,  the  repulsion, 
in  her  face  were  eloquent.  She  drew  back  from 
him  involuntarily,  and  her  greeting,  although 
gentle,  did  not  conceal  her  feelings  in  the  least. 
As  usual,  Clavering  appeared  to  be  in  the  pink 
of  condition.  The  crisis  through  which  he  had 
lately  passed,  the  shock  of  the  disappointment 
contained  in  Elizabeth's  letter,  his  four  days  of 
hard  travel,  had  left  no  mark  upon  him.  He 
was  a  strong  man  in  physique  as  well  as  in  will. 
Elizabeth  showed  great  embarrassment,  but  Clav- 
ering met  her  without  the  least  awkwardness. 
As  soon  as  they  were  alone  in  the  drawing-room, 
cool  and  darkened  from  the  too  ardent  sun, 
Clavering  came  to  the  point. 
[378] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"I  was,  of  course,  astounded  to  receive  your 
letter,"  he  said.  "I  was  on  my  ranch.  I  had 
just  arrived,  and  was  sitting  down  to  supper 
when  the  mail  was  brought  from  the  post-office 
twenty  miles  away.  I  found  if  I  left  at  once  I 
could  make  the  midnight  train,  and  that  would 
give  me  fast  connections  all  the  way  through. 
So,  when  I  had  finished  my  supper  —  it  took  me 
just  twenty  minutes  —  you  know  a  ranchman's 
supper  isn't  a  function,  so  to  speak  —  I  got  on 
horseback  and  rode  nearly  thirty  miles  in  four 
hours  and  a  half.  I  had  been  riding  all  day,  too. 
So  you  see  I'm  a  very  determined  lover.  This 
is  my  first  love,  you  know,  —  the  first  like  this,  I 
mean,  —  and  I  couldn't  afford  to  throw  it  away." 

He  was  smiling  now.  The  idea  that  the  slim 
woman,  dressed  in  black,  sitting  before  him,  with 
the  red  and  white  coming  and  going  in  her 
cheeks,  could  seriously  resist  him  really  seemed 
preposterous  to  him.  Elizabeth  remained  silent, 
and  Clavering  knew  that  silence  in  a  woman  is 
momentous.  As  she  made  no  reply  he  said,  after 
a  long  pause,  "  And  how  about  that  other  man  ?  " 

Elizabeth  had  said  no  word  in  her  letter  about 

any  one  else,  and  started  at  Clavering's  words. 

"I  —  I  —  "     She  could  get  no  farther.     It  was  in 

the  beginning  only  a  shrewd  surmise  of  Claver- 

[379] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

ing's,  but  Elizabeth's  faltering  words  and  shrink- 
ing manner  had  confirmed  it. 

"I  knew,  of  course,  another  man  had  turned 
up  ;  that's  why  I  came  post-haste,"  coolly  re- 
marked Clavering.  "Now  tell  me  all  about 
him." 

Elizabeth  was  forced  to  answer.  "  It  is  —  there 
was  —  my  husband's  cousin,  Major  Pelham." 

"  Oh,  yes  ;  the  fellow  that  persecuted  you  after 
your  husband's  death.  He,  however,  is  hardly 
the  man  to  interfere  with  me." 

"I  —  I  don't  understand  it  quite.  I  thought 
he  knew  all  that  was  being  done.  But  I  had  a 
cablegram  from  him." 

"You  must  have  written  to  him." 

"  Yes." 

**  Before  or  after  you  wrote  me  ?  " 

"  Before.  And  when  I  got  his  reply  by  cable 
I  wrote  you." 

"  I  see.     You  prefer  to  marry  him  ?  " 

"Major  Pelham  has  not  asked  me  to  marry 
him,"  replied  Elizabeth,  with  dignity. 

"  But  he  will.  Elizabeth,  you  are  promised  to 
me.  I  told  you  I  loved  you — not  in  the  flowery 
style  of  a  young  loon,  but  of  a  man  who  has 
worked  and  thought  and  fought  and  seen  enough 
to  make  him  know  his  own  mind.  Of  course  I 
[380] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

can't  coerce  you,  but  the  man  who  gets  you  away 
from  me  may  look  out  for  himself.  See,  the 
habits  of  a  man's  early  life  and  thought  never 
leave  him.  My  first  instinct  has  always  been  to 
take  care  of  my  own,  and  I  was  bred  and  made 
my  mark  in  a  country  where  neither  wife-stealing 
nor  sweetheart-stealing  is  permitted.  Sometimes 
wives  and  sweethearts  were  stolen,  but  it  was  a 
dangerous  business.  Oh,  I  don't  mean  to  use  a 
gun  ;  that  went  out  twenty-five  years  ago.  But 
there  are  many  ways  of  ruining  a  man  —  and  a 
woman,  too." 

He  spoke  quite  pleasantly,  sitting  close  to 
Elizabeth  and  holding  his  crape-covered  hat  in  his 
hand.  There  was  nothing  to  indicate  vengeance 
in  Clavering's  easy,  graceful  manner  and  charm- 
ing voice,  but  Elizabeth  shuddered  at  the  truth  of 
what  his  speech  might  mean. 

"Now  tell  me  how  you  feel  toward  this  man 
Pelham?" 

"  Major  Pelham  was  my  best  friend  during  all 
my  married  life.  I  could  not  understand  his  con- 
duct to  me  after  my  husband's  death.  One  night 
lately  I  felt  the  impulse  to  write  to  him  —  shall  I 
tell  you  everything  ?  " 

"  Yes."     Clavering  was  all  calm  attention  then. 

"  It  was  the  night  after  our  last  interview.  It 
[381] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

come  over  me  that  —  that  I  would  rather  die  than 
marry  you.  Yes,  I  mean  what  I  say.  I  didn't 
mean  to  kill  myself.  Oh,  no !  But  I  would 
rather  have  been  killed  than  married  to  you." 

Clavering's  ruddy  face  grew  pale.  He  got  up, 
walked  about  the  room,  and  sat  down  again,  still 
close  to  Elizabeth.  He  saw  she  did  not  mean  to 
be  intentionally  cruel,  but  was  striving  earnestly 
to  tell  him  the  whole  truth. 

"  I  have  often  heard  of  your  power  over  other 
men,  and  I  am  sure  you  have  great  power  over 
women  too  ;  for  I  felt  in  some  way  obliged  to 
marry  you  unless  some  one  came  in  to  help  me. 
And  then  I  thought  of  Hugh  Pelham,  and  I 
thought  it  would  be  at  least  two  or  three  months 
before  he  got  my  letter  ;  but  he  was  evidently  in 
London,  and  he  cabled  back.  I  feel  sure  he 
reached  New  York  early  this  morning." 

"  And  did  that  money  you  owed  have  anything 
to  do  with  it  ?  " 

"  Yes.     It  troubled  me  dreadfully." 

"  And  for  a  paltry  thousand  or  two  you  have 
broken  your  word  to  me,  broken  it  when  I  needed 
most  of  all  your  faith  in  me  ?  " 

"  It  was  not  the  money  wholly." 

"  It  was  also  that  I  had  lost  my  seat  in  the  Sen- 
ate of  the  United  States  ?  " 
[382] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

"  Not  altogether  that ;  but  I  knew  —  I  knew  — 
I  was  at  the  Capitol  that  day." 

"  Pardon  me,  but  you  don't  know.  What  does 
a  woman  know  about  such  things  ?  How  do  you 
know  what  it  is  for  a  man  as  strong  as  I  am,  as 
mature  as  I  am,  and  with  such  a  history  as  I  have, 
to  love  ?  Yes,  by  God,  to  love  for  the  first  time. 
What  does  a  woman's  pale  reflection  of  passion 
know  of  the  love  of  a  man  like  me  ?  I  know  all 
about  life  and  death  too.  I  have  been  a  half- 
dozen  times  within  six  inches  of  a  bullet  that  was 
extremely  likely  to  be  shot  into  my  brain.  I 
have  felt  the  whir  of  a  knife,  that  sometimes  got 
planted  in  me,  but  never  quite  far  enough  to  kill 
me.  I  have  signed  my  name  fifty  times  to  things 
that  meant  either  millions  of  dollars  to  me  or 
state's  prison.  These  are  only  a  few  of  the  things 
that  I  know  all  about,  but  I  tell  you,  Elizabeth 
Darrell,  that  they  all  seem  like  milk  and  water 
compared  with  what  I  feel  for  you.  Do  you 
know  that  the  first  time  I  saw  you,  when  you 
were  a  mere  slip  of  a  girl,  that  night  I  crushed 
your  little  pearl  heart  under  my  foot,  I  felt  a 
strange,  even  a  superstitious  interest  in  you  ? 
I  never  forgot  you  ;  and  the  first  moment  I  saw 
you  that  Sunday  afternoon,  last  November,  some- 
thing came  over  me  which  made  everything  in  the 
[383] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

world  seem  small,  beside  the  thought  of  winning 
you.  I  have  gone  through  a  good  deal  since,  but 
nothing  has  really  mattered  to  me  except  you." 
Clavering  stopped.  His  voice,  always  earnest, 
had  remained  calm  and  even  low. 

Elizabeth  was  trembling  from  head  to  foot. 
Her  resolution  never  to  marry  Clavering  was  not 
shaken  in  the  least,  or  even  touched,  but  like  a 
child  who  has  heedlessly  set  the  torch  to  a  powder 
magazine,  she  was  appalled  at  her  own  work. 
She  remained  silent  —  what  was  there  for  her  to 
say  ?  And  then  she  saw  a  figure  pass  the  bowed 
shutters,  making  a  shadow  flit  across  the  floor  ; 
and  it  was  the  shadow  of  Hugh  Pelham.  She 
sprang  to  her  feet,  a  new  light  in  her  eyes  which 
Clavering  had  never  seen  before.  Clavering  was 
for  an  instant  as  completely  forgotten  as  if  he  had 
never  been.  He  saw  his  fate  in  that  look,  that 
action.  He  rose,  too,  and  the  next  moment  Hugh 
Pelham  walked  into  the  room.  He  was  visibly 
older,  more  weather-beaten,  than  he  had  been  two 
years  before,  and,  although  ten  years  Clavering's 
junior,  he  looked  quite  the  same  age.  Evil-doing 
is  very  often  good  for  the  physical  man  and  well- 
doing bad  for  the  physical  man.  The  two  men 
instinctively  recognized  each  other  at  the  first 
glanoe,  and  hated  each  other  instantly  with  a 
[384] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

mortal  hatred.  Elizabeth  stood  next  Pelham. 
She  had  given  him  her  hand  without  a  word,  and 
he  held  it  firmly. 

Clavering  turned  to  Elizabeth  and  said :  "  When 
can  I  see  you  again?  Pray  make  it  as  soon  as 
possible.  That  much  I  can  ask,  after  what  has 
passed  between  us." 

"Excuse  me,"  said  Pelhara,  politely,  "but  I 
don't  think  Mrs.  Darrell  can  see  you  again." 

A  dull  red  showed  under  Clavering's  skin,  and 
a  slight  tremor  shook  his  massive  figure.  It  was 
a  situation  hard  for  any  man  to  bear,  and  almost 
intolerable  to  James  Clavering.  He  said  the  only 
thing  possible  under  the  circumstances.  "  I  must 
decline  to  accept  your  decision.  It  rests  with 
Mrs.  Darrell." 

Elizabeth  turned  to  Major  Pelham.  "  Will  you 
kindly  leave  me  with  Mr.  Clavering  for  a  moment? 
It  is  his  right,  and  later  I  will  explain  all  to  you." 

Pelham,  with  a  bow,  walked  out  of  the  drawing- 
room,  and,  opening  the  street  door,  gazed  upon 
the  great  pile  of  stone  which  the  Claverings  had 
lately  inhabited.  Clavering,  when  he  and  Eliza- 
beth were  alone,  said  at  once :  — 

"  I  know  how  it  is  ;  I  saw  it  in  your  face  and 
eyes  when  the  other  man  came.  I  am  not  one  likely 
to  ask  for  quarter  or  give  quarter.  I  accept  my 
2c  [385] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

fate  as  I  accepted  my  expulsion  from  the  Senate 
and  the  loss  of  many  millions  of  dollars.  There 
are  in  the  world  compensations  to  me  for  the  other 
things.  For  the  loss  of  you  there  is  no  compen- 
sation. It  is  my  first  and  my  last  chance  of  lead- 
ing a  better  life,  for  I  swear  to  you,  Elizabeth,  I 
meant  to  lead  a  better  life  if  you  had  married  me. 
But  now  —  it  doesn't  matter  in  the  least.  I  was 
born  a  hundred  years  too  late;  then  I  should  have 
married  you  by  force.  I  would  have  given  my 
seat  in  the  Senate  to  have  seen  such  a  look  in 
your  eyes  when  I  came  in  as  I  saw  when  the  other 
man  came.  Good-by,  Elizabeth." 

Elizabeth  gave  him  her  hand.  In  all  their 
acquaintance  this  was  the  first  glimpse,  the  first 
suspicion,  she  had  had  that  anything  like  a 
noble  and  uplifting  love  existed  in  Clavering  ; 
but  he,  this  man,  smirched  all  over,  a  bad  husband, 
a  bad  father,  who  knew  no  truth  nor  honesty  in 
his  dealings  with  men  or  other  women,  loved  once, 
truly,  and  at  the  moment  of  losing  everything 
else  he  lost  the  only  thing  worthy  the  name  of 
love  which  he  had  ever  known  in  his  whole  life. 
He  held  Elizabeth's  hand  in  his  ;  he  had  never  so 
much  as  kissed  it.  He  raised  it  to  his  lips,  but 
Elizabeth  drawing  back  with  a  violent  and  undis- 
guised repulsion,  he  at  once  dropped  it  again. 
[386] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

He  looked  at  her  for  a  full  minute,  compelling  her 
against  her  will  to  meet  his  gaze,  and  then,  turn- 
ing, walked  out  of  the  house.  On  the  steps  out- 
side he  passed  Pelham.  Neither  man  spoke. 

Pelham  went  into  the  drawing-room,  where 
Elizabeth  stood,  pale  and  trembling.  As  he 
closed  the  door  after  him  she  said  in  an  indescrib- 
able voice,  "  He  never  kissed  me  —  he  never  so 
much  as  kissed  my  hand." 

"I  don't  think  you  would  ever  have  married 
him  in  any  event,  Elizabeth,"  replied  Pelham, 
gently.  "  But  let  us  not  speak  of  him.  I  came 
home  as  soon  as  I  could  —  I  had  not  had  any  news 
from  England  after  I  was  well  in  the  interior  of 
Africa.  I  knew  nothing  of  what  had  been  done 
until  I  got  your  letter.  I  was  coming  to  you,  any- 
way—  your  year  of  widowhood  was  over.  Oh, 
Elizabeth,  how  could  you  misjudge  me  as  you 
did?" 

Clavering  found  himself  in  the  largest  room  of 
the  large  suite  of  rooms  he  occupied  at  the  most 
expensive  hotel  in  Washington.  The  April  sun 
was  just  setting,  and  it  flamed  upon  a  huge  mir- 
ror directly  opposite  the  luxurious  chair  in  which 
he  sat.  He  looked  at  his  own  image  reflected  full 
length  in  the  glass.  It  seemed  to  be  moving,  to 
[387] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

be  surrounded  by  other  figures.  He  saw  them  well 
—  painted  and  bedizened  women,  some  of  them 
loaded  with  jewels  and  with  coronets  on  their 
heads.  Their  faces  were  beautiful  and  engaging 
and  made  his  pulses  leap,  and  then  suddenly  these 
faces  changed  into  those  of  vultures  with  bloody 
beaks  and  hungry  eyes.  Then  there  were  men, 
some  in  court  dress  and  with  orders  sparkling  on 
their  breasts.  All  of  them  had  a  foreign  look, 
they  spoke  a  language  he  only  half  understood  ; 
and  they  too  changed  into  hungry,  distorted  figures 
which  he  knew  were  the  shapes  of  vampires  and 
harpies.  They  smiled  upon  him  and  fawned  upon 
him,  and  he  saw  himself  smiling  back,  rather 
pleased,  it  appeared.  Sometimes  he  and  this 
crowd  were  moving  through  splendid  rooms ; 
there  were  balls  and  dinners  going  on,  and  he 
could  hear  the  clash  and  rhythm  of  orchestras. 
Again,  they  were  in  dismal  business  offices,  or  in 
raging  crowds  upon  Continental  bourses.  At  first 
he  was  always  surrounded,  and  it  seemed  as  if  he 
were  losing  something  all  the  time. 

Gradually  the  men  and  women  about  him  no 
longer  fawned  upon  him.  They  were  familiar 
with  him  ;  then  they  jeered  him  ;  and  presently 
they  menaced  him.  They  tried  to  strangle  him, 
to  rob  him,  and  he  had  lost  something  —  money  or 
[388] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

power  or  capacity,  or  perhaps  all  three,  and  he 
could  not  defend  himself.  And  they  grew  more 
and  more  foreign  to  him,  he  could  not  understand 
their  language  at  all.  They  talked  among  them- 
selves, and  he  did  not  know  what  they  were  say- 
ing. And  after  a  while  he  grew  helpless,  and 
did  not  know  where  he  was  ;  and  then  he  saw 
himself  standing  on  a  bridge  at  night,  in  a  for- 
eign city.  There  were  many  lights  upon  the 
bridge,  which  were  reflected  in  the  black  and 
rushing  river.  He  was  about  to  throw  himself 
into  the  river,  when  it  suddenly  came  to  him  that 
it  was  cold  and  he  was  thinly  clad  and  hungry. 
And  then  he  knew  that  he  was  in  a  strange  coun- 
try, and  it  came  to  him  that  he  would  return  to 
his  own  land,  to  a  place  where  there  was  warmth 
and  comfort  and  the  strange  thing  he  had  lost 
would  be  awaiting  him.  But  then  he  heard  wolf- 
ish voices  shrieking  at  him  out  of  the  darkness 
that  he  had  no  home,  no  country  —  that  he  would 
never  again  be  warmed  and  fed,  and  invisible 
hands  like  lions'  claws  were  clutching  him  and 
thrusting  him  into  the  dark  waters,  and  he  could 
only  feebly  resist  them.  There  was  a  great  mock- 
ing, reddish  moon  in  the  wild  night  sky  and  it 
reeled  about  and  fell  into  an  abyss  of  black  clouds 
and  then  dropped  into  the  blacker  river.  And 
[389] 


MRS.   DARRELL 

the  stars  were  going  out  one  by  one,  so  that  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  had  a  blackness  of  the 
blackest  night. 

This  produced  a  kind  of  horror  in  him,  which 
made  him  cry  out  —  a  loud  cry,  he  thought  it. 
But  it  was  really  low  and  half  smothered.  And 
to  his  amazement  he  was  not  in  his  room  at  the 
hotel,  but  standing  in  the  doorway  of  his  own 
house.  It  was  night,  and  he  heard  a  great  clock 
inside  his  own  house  strike  the  hour  —  nine 
o'clock.  He  could  not  remember  how  or  why 
he  had  got  from  his  hotel  to  his  deserted  house. 
He  saw  the  caretaker,  an  old  hobgoblin  of  a 
negro,  peer  at  him  from  a  basement  window,  and 
he  shrank  behind  the  great  stone  pillars  of  the 
doorway.  It  was  a  warm,  soft  spring  night, 
without  a  moon,  but  the  purple  floor  of  heaven 
glittered  with  palpitating  stars.  The  street  was 
always  a  quiet  one  ;  to-night  it  was  so  strangely 
still  that  he  feared  to  move  lest  his  footfall  should 
sound  too  loud.  And  while  he  stood,  dazed  and 
hesitating  within  his  doorway,  he  saw  two  figures 
come  together  down  the  street  and  stop  at  Eliza- 
beth's house.  One  was  Elizabeth,  the  other  was  the 
man  she  loved.  The  night  was  so  warm  that 
the  house  door  was  left  open.  Clavering  watched 
the  two  figures  mount  the  steps  and  go  into  the 
[390] 


MRS.  DARRELL 

house.  The  man  touched  Elizabeth's  arm  in  help- 
ing her  up  the  steps.  It  was  a  simple,  conven- 
tional thing,  but  Clavering  saw  revealed  in  it  a 
love  so  deep,  so  constant,  so  passionately  tender, 
that  he  thought  he  had  never  seen  real  love  before. 
He  turned  away,  to  enter  upon  the  fate  that  had 
been  laid  bare  to  him. 


[391] 


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